‘Hardcore capitalist’ Rio chair defends ‘ESG zealots’

“We are getting immense pressure to proceed because of the copper reserves,” he said.

The deposit at Oak Flat, Arizona, holds 25 per cent of US reserves of the metal crucial for the electrification of the economy.

Rio Tinto chief executive Jacob Stausholm said a number of US senators were pushing to classify copper as a critical mineral.

Stausholm said the US produces less than half the two million tonnes of copper it uses each year and demand is expected to double within 10 years, and the Resolution Copper mine is the best project to help fill the gap.

“But ultimately, it’s a societal choice,” he said.

“We are super, super sensitive about the 11 first nations who have connection to the land.”

Stausholm said the large mine with high-grade ore would have less environmental impact than a series of lower grade smaller operations.

Barton, a Canadian who has chaired Rio for a year, is bullish about demand from China as it pushes to urbanise and decarbonise. He said few people appreciated the scale of China’s efforts in renewable energy.

Barton also said Rio needed to provide more detail on how it would reduce its Scope 3 emissions produced by customers using its products.

“We’re nervous about putting up numbers that we actually can’t control,” he said.

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“We do not want to do any greenwashing, and we’re religious about that.”

Rio was challenged at the AGM on its record of taking care of the land it has mined with just 16 square kilometres rehabilitated in 2022 of the about 1700 square kilometres that could be done now.

“You’re right to raise the scale of what we need to do,” Barton said, “there’s a lot of effort and focus on it.”