Inside Fortescue’s billion-dollar bet to decarbonize mining—and help rebuild Ukraine

By Andrew Forrest’s account, the childhood bullying he suffered at the hands of bigger kids explains a lot about how his life has turned out.

Growing up on a remote cattle ranch in Western Australia, “I was a very skinny kid.

I got the nickname ‘Twiggy,’ ” Forrest says in a hotel in London.

“I used to have to stand up to bullies.” Forrest never stopped fighting powerful forces.

Now 64, the executive chairman of $17 billion iron ore giant Fortescue is intent on upturning age-old practices in the heavily polluting $3 trillion mining industry.

He’s waged a five-year legal fight against Meta over deepfake ads that used his image to promote a crypto scam and other sham investments on Facebook.

When Russia invaded its far smaller neighbor in February 2022, igniting Europe’s deadliest war in generations, he was galvanized.

He has worn Ukraine’s flag pin ever since, and he’s plowing tens of millions of dollars into supporting Ukraine through years of war.

Nor did he hold back when the White House slammed one of his impassioned environmental speeches last January as “vague, radical left-wing climate goals.” Forrest’s response: “I am entitled to say whatever I damn well wish.” So he has.

In the process, Twiggy Forrest, as many Australians call him, has gained notoriety far beyond his native country—no small feat for a kid from the outback.

His 36.7% stake in Fortescue, which he founded in 2003, has made him one of the 10 richest people in Australia, worth an estimated $11.35 billion.

Maybe more impressive, Forrest’s reputation is growing not because of his astronomical riches but rather his audacious—some say fantastical—ambition to transform Fortescue’s mines, which produce nearly 222 million tons of iron ore a year, by virtually eliminating the use of fossil fuels and setting a lightning-fast 2030 deadline to do so.

It’s a high-stakes gambit.

If Forrest pulls off his green strategy, he could cement his role as a trailblazer in an epoch-defining issue, distinguishing his company from the two biggest mining titans, BHP and Rio Tinto—both more than a century older than Fortescue, and both of which have reined in their climate targets in recent years.