The precious metals industry has made significant progress in recent years in advancing its understanding of environmental impacts across mining, refining and investment. Yet one segment of the value chain remains comparatively under examined: the logistics that connect each stage.
Transport has been treated as a functional necessity – a bridge between extraction and refining – rather than a material contributor to a company’s emissions profile and sustainability commitments.
But the reality is that logistics is one of the few parts of the value chain that touches every physical movement of metal. As the industry moves towards more sophisticated expectations around emissions measurement, disclosure and reduction, transporters have a unique and essential role to play in shaping how the sector defines and delivers credible sustainability outcomes.
A growing need for practical, achievable emissions data
While mining and refining have long been the focus of emissions scrutiny, the indirect emissions generated throughout the logistics chain are now receiving greater
attention. Moving precious metals from remote mine sites, often in challenging geographies, to refineries, vaults and customers involves multimodal transport, each with distinct emissions profiles and constraints.
Across the industry, organisations are increasingly expected to quantify these impacts. This is being driven by emerging regulatory and reporting frameworks such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), and the expanding application of Scope 3 requirements under the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Yet many companies still lack access to emissions data that is both rigorous and operationally grounded.
This is where secure transporters are well positioned to contribute. Sitting at the intersection of precious metals security, aviation and supply-chain infrastructure, transport providers understand not only where transport-related emissions arise, but also the practical levers available to reduce them. As part of strengthening this visibility, IBI has undertaken formal emissions measurement across its European and Asia-Pacific operations, reporting in alignment with global frameworks including CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project).
This work has required building consistent methodologies, improving data capture across multimodal movements, and assessing emissions sources that are often overlooked in traditional reporting boundaries.
The experience has highlighted both the challenges and opportunities inherent in quantifying logistics emissions and reinforces the value of involving transport providers earlier and more systematically in sustainability discussions.
For the precious metals industry to continue maturing its approach to emissions, transport cannot remain an afterthought in ESG discussions.
From offsetting to collaboration: the next step in shared accountability
Alongside emissions measurement, IBI provides carbon-offset solutions across its global transport network, enabling customers to neutralise emissions generated at the shipment level. In some cases, this includes full mine-to-refinery measurement and offsetting for miners and refiners, demonstrating that emissions transparency can be achieved without compromising operational security or delivery timelines.
However, offsetting alone is not sufficient. The broader objective must be shared accountability: transporters engaging directly with miners, refiners and other stakeholders to recognise how emissions are generated at each stage of movement, and where reduction initiatives can realistically be implemented.
This has been particularly evident in our work with refineries, where open dialogue has helped integrate transport-related emissions into broader sustainability strategies. In practice, this has involved sharing shipment-level data, identifying higher-emission activities, and exploring practical reduction initiatives such as shipment consolidation, improved packaging materials and design, reverse logistics, and route optimisation where feasible.
Air freight plays a critical role in the secure transportation of precious metals across global supply chains, with routing, consolidation and handling decisions directly influencing transport-related emissions.
Why transporters belong in the sustainability conversation
For the precious metals industry to continue maturing its approach to emissions, transport cannot remain an afterthought in ESG discussions. Standards or expectations developed without operational insight risk becoming aspirational rather than achievable. Transporters can help bridge this gap by contributing grounded, experience-based perspectives.
In particular, transport providers can offer:
- Real-world emissions data from multimodal logistics, spanning both frequent, recurring movements and ad-hoc, one-off shipments.
- Insight into operational constraints, including security, customs, regulatory and routing challenges.
- Practical pathways to reduction, informed by day-to-day operational experience rather than theoretical modelling.
- Consistency of measurement and reporting, supporting miners, refiners and financiers seeking to harmonise emissions disclosures across the value chain.
Importantly, secure transporters can also help clarify where emissions reductions are achievable, and where mitigation or offsetting may remain necessary due to unavoidable emissions profiles, security considerations or regulatory requirements.
Looking ahead: a more connected sustainability landscape
LBMA and its Members have demonstrated leadership in strengthening the industry’s understanding of environmental impacts and encouraging transparent, credible reporting across the value chain. As sustainability expectations continue to mature globally, approaches to emissions will naturally broaden to reflect the interconnected way precious metals move from origin to end user.
Within this evolution, logistics has the potential to offer valuable insight. Transporters sit at the intersection of mining, refining and distribution, managing the most complex and security sensitive physical movements in the sector. The operational realities encountered along these routes can help illuminate where emissions arise, how they can be measured more consistently, and where reduction or mitigation opportunities realistically exist. By considering logistics in conjunction with mining and refining rather than as a separate function, the industry can build a more complete picture of its environmental footprint and the pathways available to manage it. In this way, transport becomes not just a facilitator of physical movement, but a source of practical knowledge that can support the sector’s broader sustainability ambitions.
Ultimately, the movement of precious metals will always require secure, expertly managed logistics. Yet by integrating operational insight with evolving sustainability frameworks, the industry can continue progressing towards supply chains that are not only secure and efficient, but increasingly transparent, responsible and aligned with long-term environmental goals.
Lead image caption:
Precious metals supply chains often originate in remote and environmentally sensitive regions, highlighting the importance of understanding emissions impacts from the very first mile. The image depicts a great black cockatoo, native to New Guinea, the Aru Islands and the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, Australia. The species is currently listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
