Material Stewardship for Zinc

摘要

The metals industry is faced with global challenges linked to sustainable development, among these finding a balance between environmental stewardship, economic development, and social responsibility that require full participation by the entire metal value chain. The global zinc industry has a well-established, long-term sustainability program in place providing its customers, regulators, and other stakeholder groups with facts. For example, regular updates of the global zinc mining and smelting life cycle assessment (LCA) provide practitioners with the most representative environmental footprint data for zinc. In addition, IZA conducts material stocks and flows analyses to characterize national, regional, and global recycling metrics. Furthermore, IZA's sustainability activities are framed by the SDG Sector Roadmap for the global zinc value chain, which outlines today's impacts and future impact opportunities on sustainable development as related to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). This paper provides an overview of the global zinc industries' achievements, goals and related actions and identifies challenges that still lie ahead of this industry.