Biodiversity

IAI-Biodiversity
IAI-Communities
IAI-EnvironmentalHealth
IAI-Industry&Sustainability
IAI-Mining

Aluminium’s Contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Published in

2022

This report explores the aluminium industry’s current and potential contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an urgent call to action and global partnership that addresses a range of long-term interlinked societal, environmental and economic issues – from poverty to economic growth to climate change. The original framework of the SDGs intended to bring a focus to global nations’ sustainable development efforts. We now see increased use in the business community, including the aluminium sector, to encourage active engagement and discussions and to demonstrate contribution and commitment to global sustainable development efforts.

The report provides a qualitative analysis of the relative impact of aluminium on the achievement of each of the 17 SDGs based on information from aluminium-producing companies, regional aluminium associations, desktop research and analysis of publicly available documents, to provide a global overview of activities and contributions from the industry in recent years. 

Case studies of recent sustainability initiatives in the aluminium sector feature in the report, along with highlights of aluminium’s sustainability credentials in applications (e.g., consumer, civic, industrial).

Download attachments from this resource.

Related Resources

Aluminium beverage cans are a true symbol of circularity, endlessly recyclable without losing quality. Our latest fact sheet explores how alloy design, process control and advanced recycling turn used cans back into new ones again and again. By combining precise metallurgy with efficient scrap sorting and delacquering, metal recovery improves ...

Published in

No data was found

Eunomia was commissioned by the Global Beverage Can Circularity Alliance (GBCCA) to calculate the collected for recycling and recycling rates for aluminium cans, PET bottles, and glass bottles across global markets.  Conducted in 2025 as the first in a three-year series, the research captured data representing 90% of the global market ...

Published in

IAI-Industry&Sustainability
IAI-Recycling

In 2022, the IAI published Guidelines on Transparency that state that when reporting the cradle-to-gate carbon footprint of products that contain scrap there should be full transparency on the methodology used for the carbon footprint calculation. This reference document, summarising three potential approaches, should serve aluminium producers to disclose the methodology they ...

Published in