The International Aluminium Institute (IAI) has appointed Jonathan Grant as its new Secretary General, succeeding Miles Prosser. Grant has now assumed the role and will lead the Institute at a time when aluminium is playing an increasingly important part in the global energy transition and the shift to a more resource efficient economy.
With a career spanning industry, sustainability and international collaboration, Grant brings experience from organisations including IPIECA, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the International Council on Mining and Metals and the International Emissions Trading Association, as well as roles at Chevron, PwC and Rio Tinto.
In this interview, conducted by Paul Atkins of AZ Global, Grant discusses his background, the Institute’s priorities for the coming years and the opportunities and challenges facing the aluminium sector worldwide.
The interview follows below:
AZAD: Can you start by sharing your background with us.
JG: I’ve spent most of my career working at the intersection of industry and sustainability. What I’ve always found most rewarding is working with peers from other companies to solve challenges as a sector that we can’t tackle on our own. I began at the oil and gas association IPIECA (the global oil and gas industry association for advancing environmental and social performance) in the 1990s, and since then have worked with organisations such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) and the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) while at Chevron, PwC and Rio Tinto. I chaired IETA during the COVID period, which gave me a very practical understanding of how industry associations support members through uncertainty. That experience is directly relevant to what we do at the International Aluminium Institute today.
AZAD: What do you see as the Institute’s primary challenges for the next 5 years?Climate change is obviously at the top, but please parse that into its chief dimensions for us. And what are the other challenges?
JG: Safety comes first. Everything else depends on protecting the people who work in our industry and the communities around us.
Alongside that, our core priorities include climate action, environmental performance, bauxite residue management and recycling. The Institute’s role is to bring companies together to improve performance in these areas through shared research, data and practical guidance rather than each organisation working in isolation.
A large part of what we do is develop globally consistent datasets and analysis that help members, policymakers and customers understand aluminium’s full lifecycle impacts, from bauxite mining through to production, use and recycling. This work is grounded in decades of collaboration across the industry to improve transparency, reduce pollution, manage waste and strengthen health outcomes for workers and communities.
We also convene joint initiatives where the industry can work collectively on shared challenges. The Global Beverage Can Circularity Alliance, for example, brings together stakeholders to improve recycling performance and demonstrate how aluminium can function as a truly circular material.
Our AluFwd 2030 initiative expands that collaborative model by bringing producers, users and downstream partners together to deliver a roadmap of projects aligned with net zero ambitions and broader sustainability priorities such as circularity, biodiversity, water stewardship and social outcomes.
It is designed to ensure that both production and consumption of aluminium can meet growing societal demand while supporting the transition to a low carbon and more resource efficient economy.
These kinds of partnerships allow the industry to tackle systemic challenges such as decarbonisation pathways, recycling infrastructure and responsible production in ways that no single company could deliver alone.
AZAD: When Ron Knapp took over the Secretary General’s job in 2008, the world was reeling from the Financial Crisis. When Miles Prosser took over in 2019, the world was about to slip into a global pandemic. What are the possible black swans that could beset our industry in your tenure, and how do we prepare and prevent too much (or any) damage?
JG: The outlook for aluminium is actually more positive today. There is increasing awareness among policy makers, consumers and investors of the need for aluminium and its essential role in the energy transition: for electrification, renewable energy systems, and lightweight transport. In 2008, mining and metals was perhaps tolerated – today it’s seen as a vital part of a thriving economy. .
If there is a risk, it is not demand but maintaining trust. A serious safety or environmental incident anywhere in the world could undermine confidence in the entire sector and our license to operate, because aluminium production is highly visible and globally interconnected. That is why shared standards, transparent reporting and continual improvement are so important.
In some respects, resilience comes not from predicting every disruption, which is impossible, but from strengthening collaboration, data quality and good practice across the sector so that companies are better prepared to respond to whatever challenges arise.
AZAD: Geopolitics is getting in the way of a unified Climate Change campaign. Countries are withdrawing from the Paris agreement or cutting funding or modifying climate change laws. Aluminum companies inside those jurisdictions must be feeling some “divided loyalty” pressure – do they maintain the good fight, or do they change their position in light of their nation’s new positioning? Do you see or foresee problems arising from those geopolitical moves, for our industry?
JG: The Institute’s strength is that it provides a neutral platform where the global industry can work together despite regional differences. Inevitably there are tensions, whether around trade measures, carbon policies such as CBAM or wider geopolitical pressures, but technical collaboration continues because it delivers practical benefits for all participants.
We focus on areas where collective progress is both possible and necessary, grounded in shared data, science and operational expertise. One of our core roles is to develop and maintain globally consistent statistics and lifecycle datasets that allow companies, governments and customers to work from the same evidence base. That common understanding helps avoid fragmentation in how aluminium’s environmental performance is measured and ensures that improvements made in one region can be recognised and replicated elsewhere.
By convening producers to exchange knowledge on emissions reduction, recycling performance, material flows and safety practices, the Institute enables alignment on methodologies without interfering in commercial competition. This is particularly important for a globally traded material like aluminium, where consistency and transparency underpin market confidence as well as sustainability progress.
Watch for part 2 of the interview.
