International

loThe IAI

International Aluminium Institute (IAI) – your gateway into the world aluminium industry. As the global forum of aluminium and alumina producers we are dedicated to the development and wider use of this competitive and uniquely valuable material.

Aluminium has so many applications it is impossible to imagine a world without it. The amazing, unique qualities of this metal give it an almost endless range of applications, from transport, packaging, electrical application, medicine, and construction of homes and furniture.

It is key to improving global living standards and developing a better and more sustainable world environment.

Global society faces a great challenge to shift human economic activity and lifestyles on to a sustainable path in the 21st century, including meeting threats from climate change. The story of the aluminium industry over the decades ahead must be one of how it is part of the solution for a sustainable future.

This century began with an estimated 6 billion people on the planet, up six-fold in just 200 years from 1 billion in the year 1800. The United Nations currently expects global population to peak around 2050 at about 9 billion.

The sustainability challenge shared by all nations, industries and communities is to provide not only for the basic needs of all of these people, but to meet their expectations for improving quality of life. Crucially, this socio-economic progress must be achieved while ensuring that the natural environment remains ecologically viable and able to meet the needs of future generations as well as current ones.

The products of human ingenuity, including industrial creations such as the versatile metal aluminium, have a vital role to play in successfully addressing this sustainability challenge. To do its part, the aluminium industry needs to minimize environmental, social and economic negatives and maximize the positives across its life-cycle – from pre-mining to post-consumer stages – delivering a clear net benefit to society.