A former UK minister for climate change and now chairman of a hydropower and metals group, Lord Gregory Barker is keen to talk about carbon emissions. At the helm of Russia’s EN+, he not only oversees renewable energy production, but also the production of aluminium. Through a controlling stake in Rusal, he is in a position to influence the world’s largest producer of the metal outside of China.
The aluminium sector is responsible for about 2% of global carbon emissions, according to the World Economic Forum’s analysis of the International Aluminium Institute data, but it is an important component of the transition to a greener economy as it allows, for example, lighter and, therefore, more fuel-efficient vehicles than steel, and is easily recyclable.
