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The move combines the efforts of competitors Alcoa, the largest U.S. aluminum producer, and London-based Rio, the world’s No. 2 miner. They appointed Rio executive Vincent Christ to head the venture, to be named Elysis.

For Apple, the public investment is a rare move. While Apple typically invests millions of dollars in the development of new manufacturing processes and key technologies, it often doesn’t discuss them publicly.

Recently, however, the company started a $5 billion fund in the U.S., resulting in investments in companies such as Corning Inc. and Finisar Corp., which make glass for iPhone screens and Face ID sensors, respectively. Five years ago, Apple also invested hundreds of millions of dollars in an Arizona plant for building sapphire crystal iPhone screens, but the deal fell apart due to quality-control problems.

The investment in the new aluminum process is comparatively small monetarily, but could have a big impact on the company’s future environmental efforts. Apple has said it eventually hopes to make its products entirely from recycled materials. It also indicated recently that it reduced its total greenhouse gas emissions by 2 million metric tons between 2016 and 2017.

On its environment report, the company says that 80 percent of greenhouse emissions from an iPhone 8 come during the production phase. This new initiative could reduce that.

Bloomberg.com