As the demand for electric vehicle (EV) metals grows across Europe, global mining giant Rio Tinto and UK-based refinery developer Green Lithium have joined forces to create a robust domestic lithium supply chain. This strategic partnership is set to boost the UK and EU’s automotive and manufacturing sectors, while also advancing decarbonization goals.
Rio Tinto – Green Lithium Partnership Sparks Hope for Europe’s Lithium Future
Green Lithium plans to construct a large-scale lithium refinery in Teesside, England. The facility will produce high-purity lithium chemicals, essential for batteries in the UK and EU automobile industry. What makes this project unique is its focus on sustainability. To reduce environmental impact, the company will use advanced technology to process low-carbon spodumene concentrate.
Philippe Bourdages, Vice President of Minerals Sales at Rio Tinto remarked,
“Rio Tinto and Green Lithium share ambitions related to decarbonization and today’s announcement is an important step forward in our journey towards unlocking the end-to-end battery metals supply chain in Europe. Alongside Green Lithium, we are looking to supply the global rollout of green battery technology to feed the significant European market demand.”
Rio Tinto will play a significant role in boosting lithium production. This initiative comes at a crucial time. Europe, despite being a key player in the EV market, lacks sufficient lithium refining capabilities. Currently, much of the global supply chain is controlled by Chinese companies.
This joint venture is expected to help reduce Europe’s dependence on imports, thereby securing a sustainable supply of battery metals.
Most importantly Sarah Jones MP, UK Government Minister for Industry and Decarbonisation applauded this deal, noting,
“This is great news for Green Lithium and Rio Tinto and will not only support high-skilled jobs in the North East but boost our critical minerals supply chains as we continue to build a cleaner, greener future for our automotive industry and drive forward our mission to net zero.”
Unlocking Green Lithium’s Sustainable Lithium Refinery in Teesside
Green Lithium’s lithium refinery in Teesside, North East England, aims to set new sustainability standards. With a low-carbon refining process, it will reduce emissions compared to traditional resource-heavy methods. This is possible due to its location in a region with abundant clean energy options.
The refinery will use renewable energy sources, including on-site solar and wind power. To further cut emissions, the facility will enter into green power agreements, ensuring its electricity comes from clean sources. By 2035, the plant also aims to fully transition to green hydrogen for gas needs, replacing natural gas.
Guy Hatcher, Head of Strategic Business Development and Co-Founder at Green Lithium highlighted that as per Minviro’s Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) report, the refinery’s emissions profile is set to outperform existing operations. It can potentially reduce the overall carbon footprint by 75% compared to current refineries. With these innovations, the refinery is on track to lead the way in sustainable lithium production for the growing battery market.
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Why Lithium is Crucial for Europe’s Net Zero Goals?
It’s a well-known fact that lithium is a key material for electric vehicle (EV) batteries and energy storage systems and would significantly reduce Europe’s dependency on fossil fuels in the future.
According to the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) which is part of the Green Deal Industrial Revolution,
“Ensures EU access to a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials, enabling Europe to meet its 2030 climate and digital objectives.”
The CRMA emphasized that critical raw materials are essential to Europe’s economy but are vulnerable to supply disruptions. Demand for these materials is rapidly increasing due to global decarbonization efforts. Furthermore, the council has predicted:
- By 2030, the EU’s need for lithium will rise twelvefold, and by 2050, it will increase twenty-onefold.
However, Europe currently imports 81% of its lithium and lacks domestic refining capacity, relying heavily on suppliers from Chile and China. The CRMA tackles Europe’s supply vulnerabilities by building strong, resilient, and sustainable value chains. Additionally, it aims to enhance domestic extraction, refining, and recycling while lowering import reliance and monitoring supply disruptions.
CRMA’s 2030 Milestones for Domestic Capacities
The Act sets these benchmarks along the strategic raw materials value chain and for the diversification of the EU supplies
- at least 10% of the EU’s annual consumption for extraction
- at least 40% of the EU’s annual consumption for processing
- at least 25% of the EU’s annual consumption for recycling
- no more than 65% of the EU’s annual consumption from a single third country
Lithium Prices Stabilize While Cobalt Trend Low, A S&P Global Report
Passenger plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) sales rose 26.5% year over year in August, driven by growth in China, though Europe’s top markets saw a decline of over 60,000 units due to Germany’s end of subsidies.
With slowing PEV demand in Europe and the U.S., battery makers are delaying expansions, and automakers are pushing back electrification goals.
The key highlights of the S&P Global analysis were: Lithium prices stabilized shortly because of CATL’s mine shutdown and high seasonal demand, but the market was oversupplied. Conversely, cobalt prices fell 1.7% in September, and the excess supply is likely to continue until 2028, keeping prices low.
EU’s Quest for Reliable Supply Chains
To diversify supply, the EU is also forming global partnerships to secure domestic supply chains and boost sustainable economic growth. Significant deposits have been found in Serbia and Germany, However, challenges like environmental concerns and regulatory hurdles have slowed progress.
One major example is Rio Tinto’s efforts to revive its Jadar lithium project in Serbia. This project, set to be Europe’s largest lithium mine, had its license revoked in 2022 due to environmental protests. However, with legal approval in July 2023, the project’s resumption was on track. Rio Tinto estimates that the Jadar mine could produce up to 60,000 tons of lithium annually, which would meet nearly 20% of Europe’s demand for EV batteries.
We can infer that the partnership between Rio Tinto and Green Lithium not only supports the automotive industry but also aligns with wider efforts to achieve net zero emissions. Both companies are committed to decarbonization, and this project could significantly reduce the carbon footprint of lithium production in Europe.
Last but not least, Sean Sargent, Chief Executive Officer of Green Lithium, expressed himself by saying.
“The EV and battery revolutions are fundamental to reducing the carbon emissions that contribute to global climate change. By building our refineries, we will accelerate the adoption of EVs and sustainable energy storage through the increased supply of low-carbon, battery-grade lithium chemicals. Fulfilling this vision requires the right partners, and in Rio Tinto we have found an exceptional potential commercial partner.”
- MUST CHECK OUT: The Fastest Developing North American Lithium Junior
The post Driving Decarbonization: Rio Tinto and Green Lithium to Boost EU Lithium Supply appeared first on Carbon Credits.
More and more small and medium-sized businesses are hearing the same question from their larger customers: What is your carbon footprint? That question now travels down entire supply chains, and it arrives next to tender requirements, certification criteria, and rising customer expectations.
The accounting differences that decide whether your nature investment shows up in inventory, in BVCM, or nowhere at all.
The question reaches a procurement team about three weeks before the next sustainability committee meeting. Someone has read about insetting. Someone else has just signed off on an offset purchase. The CSO wants to know if the two are interchangeable. The answer is no, and the GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard is the reason why.
This article walks through what each term means at audit-grade specificity, what the standards actually say about how each gets counted, and how to decide which tool fits which target. The insetting vs offsetting question is one of the most-searched in corporate climate strategy, and one of the most poorly answered. By the end of this piece, you should be able to brief a committee on the difference without notes.
The two definitions, in plain English
Offsetting means buying carbon credits generated outside your value chain and retiring them against your residual emissions. The reduction happens somewhere else, financed by you, and the credit is the receipt.
Insetting means investing in emission reductions or removals inside your own value chain, typically with suppliers, where the reduction is directly linked to the products and services you buy. The reduction happens inside the boundary of your Scope 3 inventory, and the accounting treatment is fundamentally different.
The shorthand from the University of Oxford’s Nature-based Insetting Initiative is useful: insetting is what you do with the supply chain you have; offsetting is what you do with the supply chain you do not have.
What the GHG Protocol Land Sector Standard actually says
The GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard, finalised in 2024 after a multi-year pilot, sets the rules for how land-based emission reductions and removals enter corporate inventories. The Standard distinguishes between inventory accounting (Scope 1, 2, and 3) and project or intervention accounting (a separate methodology for crediting).
For insetting, the practical implication is that supplier-level interventions, when properly measured and attributed, can reduce your Scope 3 category 1 (purchased goods and services) emissions in your inventory. The reduction is not a credit retired against the inventory; it is a lower inventory number, period.
For offsetting, the credit is retired separately. It can be reported as a contribution toward a net-zero claim under the SBTi Beyond Value Chain Mitigation framework or as part of a VCMI Carbon Integrity claim, but it does not lower the inventory number.
A practical consequence: if your Science Based Target requires a 50% absolute reduction in Scope 3 emissions by 2030, insetting moves you toward the target. Offsetting does not. This single point of difference reshapes the procurement decision.
When insetting counts toward Scope 3 (and when it does not)
Insetting counts toward Scope 3 only when several conditions are met:
- The intervention must occur with an entity in your value chain.
- The emissions reduction or removal must be measured against a defensible baseline.
- The reduction must be attributed to your share of that supplier’s output, not double-counted with other buyers.
- It must follow the inventory accounting rules in the GHG Protocol Land Sector Standard, not the project accounting rules used to generate credits.
The most common failure mode is double counting. If your supplier sells the same reduction as a credit on the voluntary market and also reports it to you as a Scope 3 reduction, the math breaks. The Standard requires you to address this risk, typically by purchasing and retiring the supplier-issued credit as part of your inventory or by contractual provisions that prevent the supplier from selling the reduction twice.
When insetting does not count toward Scope 3: when the intervention sits with a supplier you do not buy from, when the baseline is not defensible, when the attribution is unclear, or when the documentation does not survive audit. Those cases default to Beyond Value Chain Mitigation, which is still useful but operates on a different ledger.
The procurement and supplier engagement question
Insetting is harder than offsetting. That is the unfashionable truth most buyers eventually confront. Offsetting is a transaction; insetting is a relationship.
To run an insetting program, you need supplier mapping precise enough to know which farms or facilities sit at which Scope 3 boundary. You need an engagement model that gets suppliers to participate, which usually requires multi-year commitments and shared economics. You need an MRV architecture that measures the right things and produces audit-ready documentation. And you need a contractual structure that prevents double counting and protects both sides.
The trade-off you receive in return is significant. Reductions count against your inventory rather than your residual. Supplier relationships deepen, which protects sourcing continuity. Yield and quality improvements often follow regenerative interventions, which reduces your input cost over time. And the regulatory file, under CSRD, CSDDD, EUDR, and the SBTi FLAG Guidance, is materially stronger.
Choosing the right tool for the right target
A practical decision rule. If your target is a science-based Scope 3 reduction and you operate in a FLAG sector or source FLAG commodities, insetting is the structurally correct tool. If your target is a net-zero claim that includes neutralising hard-to-abate residual emissions outside your value chain, BVCM via high-integrity offsets is the structurally correct tool. Most companies with material Scope 3 exposure need both, in different proportions, sequenced over time.
The sequencing matters. Insetting takes longer to stand up but produces a permanent reduction in the inventory. Offsetting can be transacted faster but does not change the inventory and now sits under tighter claim restrictions. Treat them as complementary tools with different jobs, not as substitutes. The Accountability Framework Initiative and the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions both provide useful guardrails for the insetting side, with biodiversity, human rights, and benefit-sharing requirements that go beyond carbon math.
If you are mapping a Scope 3 reduction roadmap and need to scope which interventions count toward your inventory versus which sit in Beyond Value Chain Mitigation, the carbon and sustainability experts at Carbon Credit Capital can help you structure a nature-based supply chain investment program that fits your FLAG exposure, your target architecture, and your audit horizon. Schedule a consultation.
Net zero is often described as a balancing act: cut what you can, account for the rest, and reach zero on the ledger. That framing is useful, but it leaves something out. It treats every tonne of carbon as interchangeable and every route to zero as equally sound, while the science tells a more specific story.
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