By Stephen Bell, International Fertilizer Association
According to the International Fertilizer Association’s (IFA) Market Intelligence data, global primary potash production reached a record high of 80.9 Mt in 2024, marking a 10 per cent year-over-year (YoY) increase. This growth was driven by improved affordability and, consequently, a sustained recovery in demand. Potassium chloride (KCl) production accordingly rose by 10 per cent to 76.6 Mt in 2024 YoY, the highest annual volume on record. The increase was fueled by a rebound in demand, along with the development of alternative trade routes from Russia and Belarus in response to sanctions.
With growing production, a corresponding increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be expected for the global potash industry under business-as-usual scenarios. Potash production in Canada in 2015 was estimated to emit around three Mt CO2-eq of direct and indirect emissions based on Canada’s production profile.[i],[ii] Production profiles for other countries are not as well described, and so we have limited visibility on the global situation aside from using rough emissions intensity metrics. A back of the napkin calculation suggests that if the global potash industry were a country, it could place within the top 100 in terms of annual emissions (using an outdated global emission factor for KCl of 0.23 t of CO2-eq per tonne produced).[iii] However, recent and statistically robust GHG emissions data for the global potash industry are severely lacking, leaving estimates like these unreliable.
Without a science-based understanding of both the emissions and mitigation opportunities in the global potash industry, producers are unable to plan, compare, implement, and be recognized for credible and effective decarbonization strategies. Moreover, companies require guidance on what mitigation results can be expected of them within an industry-wide decarbonization pathway, considering regional and facility-specific differences (which was identified in Fertilizer Canada’s Technology Roadmap as a determining factor for the feasibility and implementation of decarbonization solutions). The lack of such a resource hinders public-private collaborations to invest in low-carbon potash production, just as production is increasing and the fertilizer industry is expected to respond to global food demands while also acting on emissions. Unlike for low-carbon ammonia production, which is informed by several science-based resources, including the International Energy Agency’s widely recognized Ammonia Technology Roadmap from 2021, the decarbonization of phosphate and potash fertilizers has received less attention.[iv]
Expert members of IFA’s Decarbonization Working Group have identified this challenge as a strategic priority. As part of IFA’s innovative Fertilizer Industry Decarbonization Initiative, IFA is partnering with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and ERM to deliver a dedicated technology roadmap for decarbonizing both phosphate and potash production in 2026. The roadmap, to be developed by ERM with support from Systemiq, aims to identify the policy and technology deployment actions required to mitigate the industry’s emissions.
The potential scope for potash production covered by the project is shown in Figure 1. The project is exploring archetypes for global production of potash fertilizers and developing a global GHG emissions baseline. This is to be followed by evaluating low-carbon technologies, along with policy, technology development, and deployment actions. The project aims are to roadmap a sustainable and low-carbon potash fertilizer industry, foster stakeholder buy-in through structured engagement, and develop indicators and metrics for assessing the industry’s performance in implementing the roadmap. Ultimately, the roadmap will serve as a resource to help the potash industry continue to supply fertilizers to a growing global population while at the same time addressing its contribution to global emissions.
With the first stakeholder workshops starting in November 2025 and the final project publication tentatively planned for June 2026, all potash producers and other key stakeholders from within and outside the industry are welcome to get involved. Stakeholders can participate in hybrid and in-person workshops, review and provide feedback to project deliverables, and share their organizations’ perspectives to promote wider uptake of the roadmap and its positive benefits for the global fertilizer industry.
An in-person workshop dedicated to potash production is planned for early March 2026 in Toronto, Canada. The workshop goals are to discuss and validate the actions for decarbonization and circularity measures, the implementation of proposals, the KPIs and monitoring frameworks, and to ensure that the roadmap is aligned with climate disclosure and target-setting frameworks. Reach out to IFA (Stephen Bell, sbell@fertilizer.org) and the team at ERM (Daniel Saxton, daniel.saxton@erm.com) to learn more.
[i] Fertilizer Canada. (2023). Technology Roadmap Study Report – GHG Emission Reductions in the Canadian Fertilizer Production Sector.
[ii] Katta, A. K., Davis, M., & Kumar, A. (2020). Assessment of greenhouse gas mitigation options for the iron, gold, and potash mining sectors. Journal of Cleaner Production, 245, 118718.
[iii] Brentrup, F., Hoxha, A., & Christensen, B. (2016). Carbon footprint analysis of mineral fertilizer production in Europe and other world regions. In Conference paper, the 10th international conference on life cycle assessment of food (LCA Food 2016) (Vol. 19).
[iv] International Energy Agency (IEA). (2021). Ammonia Technology Roadmap CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.
