European Aluminium Association

This article is part of the Climate project of Spinwatch.

The EAA is a lobbying, trade, communications and public image body for the aluminium industry. It is based in Brussels, close to the European Parliament.

According to their website:

'The European Aluminium Association (EAA) represents the aluminium industry in Europe. The EAA was founded in 1981. Its members are the European primary aluminium producers, the national associations representing the manufacturers of rolled and extruded products in 18 European countries, the Organisation of European Aluminium Remelters and Refiners (OEA) and the European Aluminium Foil Association (EAFA).'

The overall objective of the EAA is to secure sustainable growth of aluminium in its markets and to maintain and improve the image of the aluminium industry towards target audiences. In order to achieve these objectives the EAA is active in the fields of:

• Issue monitoring and issue management on topics of common interest;
• Generic promotion and communication on aluminium;
• Collection, maintenance and dissemination of European aluminium statistics;
• Encouraging and initiating studies or research projects and technical co-operation in all relevant areas whether of a scientific, technological, economic, governmental, sociological, legal or any other nature.

Influencing the climate change debate

The EAA exerts pressure in the EU parliament on climate change policy. In 2008 the EAA denounced the EU's climate change package. Patrick de Schrynmakers, secretary general said:

"Europe will export jobs and import energy intensive products, with no environmental gain"

"As the legislative process moves forward, EAA exhorts Parliament and member states to protect the sustainability of this important sector of the European economy."

Greenwashing and propaganda

The EAA website aims to counter potential and past critique by environmentalists and contains long sections which espouse the environmental excellence of aluminium companies in mining and production.

For example, in an EAA press release Patrick de Schrynmakers, Secretary General of the EAA claims:

"Today we not only know perfectly what resources it takes to produce aluminium, but our knowledge goes far beyond that. Through structural research & development programs our members help manufacturers of many sorts of consumer products reduce their eco-footprint. Through sustainable design and light-weighting, we are committed to making sure that our products can be easily recycled at the end of their use - a major contribution to a greener world."

Lightweight vehicles

The EAA (along with other aluminium trade associations and lobby groups) has been instrumental in pushing the potential use of aluminium to create lighter cars and planes which will therefore be more fuel efficient. This benefit of aluminium has been a central plank in the aluminium industry's climate change strategy, portraying themselves as a clean green metal which will save carbon not create it. Some of the more general critiques of aluminium's green status are made at the Aluminium Federation page.

Dr Dietrich Wieser, Alcoa's Director Business Development Ground Transportation Europe spoke at the European Aluminium Congress in Dusseldorf, Germany in 2009, hailing the benefits of aluminium for lightweighting;

"Aluminum not only offers significant advantages during the use stage of an automobile, but in particular, also in the end-of-life stage...The infinite recyclability of aluminum, together with its high scrap value and the low energy needs during recycling make aluminum lightweight solutions in automotive applications highly desirable."

These assertions fail to mention that aluminium is the most energy intensive metal to produce and has serious climate change implications along the production chain relative to steel (which uses 95% less energy to produce), or that aluminium emissions are predicted to rise year on year. .

More interestingly, the science of life-cycle analysis used to justify the benefits of aluminium vehicles has been co-opted by the aluminium industry and hides some of the climatic impacts of aluminium production. For example the considerable primary and secondary emissions from hydro-electric dams which much of aluminium smelting relies on are not included , nor are the climatic effects of rainforest and semi-tropical forest destruction for bauxite mining.

In a 2009 EAA position paper on the European Union's European Green Cars Initiative they demonstrate their intention to work closely with policy makers to secure financial and regulatory benefits for increased aluminium in cars.

The aluminium industry welcomes regulatory initiatives aiming at stimulating the demand for low CO2 emitting cars.

EAA’s Automotive and Transport Market Group chairman Roland Harings points out: “Our industry is highly concerned that, in its current shape, the proposal ignores the most straightforward option for emission reductions which is lightweighting, and which can be applied immediately.”

The European Aluminium Association is therefore ready to help legislators amend the proposal towards more technological neutrality.

Secat (Aluminium research body)'s Subodh Das has helped make the argument for increasing aluminium content in cars through his published research, in collaboration with the Center for Aluminum Technology at the University of Kentucky, of which he is director.

Life Cycle Analysis

With the help of academics like Das, the aluminium industry has participated in laying the foundations of the science of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) right from the start, working with academia, authorities and the consumer to ensure its success. The EAA, alongside the Aluminium Association and International Aluminium Institute have been involved in dominating the aluminium life cycle debate. The industry contributes to the European Platform on Life Cycle Assessment which is developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. According to the EAA; "This LCA platform aims at integrating life cycle thinking into product development and into policy making using sound LCA methodologies based on ISO standards"

Despite this domination of aluminium life cycle science, the EAA has also been critical of the way LCA has been used in comparing between materials and hence making decisions on their environmental credentials. They note that LCA has become a very important and accepted tool for making political decisions.

The EAA's document "Life Cycle Assessment and Aluminium: What you need to know", produced for the European Aluminium Industry critiques several political decisions made using LCA which were not in aluminium's favour. Firstly the Danish government's rate of tax on packaging, and secondly The German government's UBA II study into re-usable glass bottles versus aluminium cans. In both cases they claim that the science was inconclusive and the judgement was subjective and value-based on the part of the assessor, and therefore unfair.

Energy usage in smelting

The EAA's document "Life Cycle Assessment and Aluminium: What you need to know", produced for the European Aluminium Industry admits that aluminium smelting is energy intensive. However they claim that within Europe, Russia and the 'Western world':

'more than 50 % of the energy used to produce the aluminium supplied to the European market comes from hydropower (hydroelectricity), a clean and renewable energy source.'

There is a large body of evidence that large dams in fact have serious climatic implications (see Fearnside ) as well as being ecologically damaging in many other ways (see McCully ). Further, they are not in fact renewable, generally silting up and requiring costly de-commissioning after 50 years or less.

Other sources are:

• Natural gas 5%
• Crude Oil 3%
• Nuclear 15%
• Hard Coal 20%
• Brown Coal 5%
• Hydro-electricity 52%

The document goes on to praise aluminium's recyclability, but admits that:

'Nevertheless, whether aluminium is produced from bauxite or from scrap, these operations are not in competition with each other. They are both integrated and necessary parts of the aluminium material cycle.'

If recycling has no effect on the demand for newly mined aluminium then there is virtually no environmental benefit, as emissions and other damage from raw manufacture have not decreased, though those from recycling will have.

Members

Primary Aluminium

• Rio Tinto Alcan
• Alcoa Europe S.A.
• TRIMET Aluminium AG
• Hydro
• Aluminium Konin - Impexmetal S.A.
• Kubikenborg Aluminium AB
• Slovalco
• Zalco - Zeeland Aluminium Company]]
• Aluminium of Greece S.A.I.C.
• Talum d. d.
• Alro S.A.

Secondary Aluminium

• Organisation of European Aluminium Refiners and Remelters

Aluminium Foil

• European Aluminium Foil Association

Board

• Rudi Huber chair

Staff

• Patrick de SchrynmakersSecretary General
• Claude Claire Sönmez Public Affairs & Communications Director
• Eirik Nordheim Environment, Health and Safety Director
• Maarten Labberton Packaging Director
• Bernard Gilmont Transport & Building Director
• Bob Lambrechts Statistics & Economics Director
• Christian Leroy Sustainability & LCA - Building & Transport Manager
• Zoltan Precsenyi Public Affairs & Communication Manager
• Sandro Starita EHS Manager
• Pavlos Vatavalis Building Technical Manager
• Ana Maria Danila Sustainability Data Officer
• Viviane Verbiest Administrative Assistant
• David Van Heuverswyn Assistant Public Affairs, Communication & Packaging
• Annie Marthoud Assistant EHS, Automotive & Standardisation
• Natacha Kukin Assistant Finances & Communications