RENAULT SUPPORTS A MORATORIUM ON DEEPWATER MINING
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – France’s Renault group and U.S. carmaker Rivian have backed a moratorium on deep-sea mining and will exclude seabed metals from their supply chains.
Renault’s logo now appears on the campaign against deep-sea mining website www.noseabedmining.org, which lists companies supporting the moratorium. A spokesperson said it was added on Tuesday as part of the automaker’s sustainability strategy.
The decision by Renault, in which the French government owns 15.01%, increases pressure on the nascent industry of deep-sea mining of metals used in the production of batteries for electric cars such as cobalt, nickel and manganese. .
Seabed mining is not permitted until the UN’s International Seabed Authority finalizes global regulations.
A Renault spokesperson said the company’s call for a moratorium was in line with the government’s position, as France “plans to invest in seabed exploration to identify potential solutions. for sustainable extraction”.
Last October, French President Emmanuel Macron ranked the exploration of the deep seabed among the priorities of the “France 2030” investment plan, while stressing that he was not talking about “exploitation”.
France holds an exploration contract through the French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer), valid until June 2026, for an area of 75,000 km2 rich in polymetallic nodules, in the North Pacific.
(Report Helen Reid in Johannesburg and Gilles Guillaume in Paris, French version Augustin Turpin, edited by Sophie Louet)