The Chilean branch of multinational mining firm Anglo American is sponsoring a project seeking marine solutions to offset carbon dioxide emissions from its land-based mining operations.
The initiative is a component of the company’s larger strategy to reach carbon neutrality by 2040, Anglo American Climate Change and Sustainability Department Biodiversity Advisor Rafael Ascanio said during a presentation showcasing the project at the Chile Carbon Forum, which took place recently in the country’s capital city of Santiago.
The first pillar of that strategy is to decarbonize its mining operations as much as possible, while the second is to use nature-based solutions to offset emissions that still occur, he said. Regarding the latter, Anglo American Chile has prioritized developing local projects to provide social benefits while also enhancing biodiversity, reverting to the purchase of carbon credits as a last option.
To that end, Anglo American turned to nonprofit Fundación Chile and seaweed-farming startup Huiro Regenerativo to implement a “blue carbon” project to capture carbon through ocean ecosystems. Land forests have traditionally been considered the main carbon sinks, which is an environment that has the ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but research has discovered that the oceans – and the forests they house such as giant kelp – can be even more efficient at absorbing carbon from the atmosphere.
The goal for the partnership with Fundación Chile and Huiro Regenerativo is to implement a demonstrative pilot project in three areas in Chile to estimate how effective different types of macroalgae farming is at capturing and sequestering carbon.
Fundación Chile and its Aquapacifico aquaculture innovation center have planted 1 hectare to test the Macrocystis pyrifera algae in the northern Atacama region in conjunction with Universidad Andres Bello. Huiro Regenerativo has another two test areas: 1 hectare in the central Valparaiso region, and 5 hectares in the southern Los Lagos region. Besides Macrocystis pyrifera algae at both centers, they are also testing Gracilaria chilensis and Chondrocanthus chamissoi.
Chile is one of the world’s main exporters of macroalgae, 94 percent of which comes from natural algae fields and only 6 percent from farmed algae, Fundación Chile Leader of Environmental Monitoring and Remediation Cristóbal Girardi said during the event.
Most natural algae harvesting is illegal as the country lacks the capacity to efficiently inspect and control operations, leading to a depredation of the biomass and demonstrating a significant need for aquaculture, he said.
Fundación Chile planted its first 2,800 seedlings of Macrocystis pyrifera in October 2023, observing steady growth for the plants that survived. However, the survival rate was only 50 percent due to heavy sea swells, Girardi said.
According to Girardi, the project is promising, but the results are too preliminary to conclude how effective algae is in capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and the real challenge is in demonstrating its ability to sequester carbon more so than solely capturing it.
Huiro Regenerativo Co-Founder and CEO María José de la Fuente said that her organization is working with Netherlands-based seaweed breeder Hortimare and has augmented its algae-planted surface sixfold from 2022 to 2024, increasing the amount of carbon captured from 1,045 kilograms to 10,000 kilograms and nitrogen absorbed from 70 kilograms to 640 kilograms over the same period of time.
Huiro Regenerativo is developing an algae nursery using readily available materials, including repurposed materials discarded by salmon-farming firms such as buoys, ropes, and PVC. Salmon-farming firms – including Cermaq, Mowi, AquaChile, Caleta Bay, and Salmones Austral – are aiding the project in making concessions that are not currently being used available to Huiro Regenerativo, in providing other infrastructure needed to cultivate algae.
Huiro Regenerativo is currently standardizing its cultivation processes and methodologies for measuring carbon and nitrogen absorbed by the algae, seeking to enter the blue carbon credits market soon, de la Fuente said.
The organization’s regenerative model involves technology, knowledge, and infrastructure transfer to surrounding communities, in addition to the co-development of a governance model for environmental, social, and economic sustainability.
The algae grown by Huiro Regenerativo is harvested and used to produce bioplastics and pellets to feed salmon farmed by the same companies that participate in the process.
Anglo American is considered the world's largest producer of platinum and is a major producer of diamonds, copper, nickel, iron ore, polyhalite, and steelmaking coal. In Chile, it mainly mines copper.
