Lubin, 15 July 2020

ZPPM / 66 / VII / 2020
 
European Commission
Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union
Unit B2 – Sustainable finance
1049 Bruxelles/Brussel
Belgium

Employers Organization of Polish Copper position on the renewed sustainable finance strategy

Employers’ Organization of Polish Copper welcomes a European Green Deal to put Europe on the right track to a sustainable future and is prepared to take the necessary measures to make it the world’s first climate neutral continent.

As the representative of the Polish metals mining, processing and smelting industry, we welcome the Commission’s renewed sustainable finance strategy as a part of actions for a greener and cleaner economy and agree that a socio – economically efficient, sustainable and flexible financial system is essential for long-term value creation.

The European mining industry plays a critical role in underpinning economic growth. The development of mineral resources is a pillar for many national economies, in terms of contribution to gross domestic product, foreign direct investment, tax & royalty revenues as well as other governmental revenues. Even more, the mining industry produces more than 42 different metals and minerals and employs 350.000 people directly and about 4 times as many indirectly. Modern extraction and processing of minerals and metals has brought huge benefits to society while reducing pressures on the environment, addressing green-house gas emissions, tackling pollution, minimizing waste and improving efficiency in the use of natural resources. Even more, the mineral industry will continue to enable downstream sectors to realize all these improvements.

All European strategic value chains are related to the two main drivers of industrial transformation – the transition to a climate-neutral economy and to a data-driven economy. They are directly linked to improving competitiveness, fighting climate change, and enhancing technological development. And all of them will inevitably require raw materials: not only those that are currently being tagged as “critical”, but also huge amount of base metals such as copper, aluminium, silver, lead and others. (więcej…)