The Environmental Criticality of Primary Raw Materials

The issue of raw material criticality has recently been at the center of discussion. The goal of this review is to present this notion to a physical sciences audience while critically examining both its limitations and the flaws in current assessments. In addition, we will briefly discuss the intricacies of raw material markets that are not addressed by current criticality estimates. We claim that broad criticality assessments can be deceptive, and that they may thus be ineffective in identifying the most serious (economic) threats in today’s markets. We strive to identify overarching issues and propose a number of viable techniques for mitigating the relevant risks, as opposed to the simplified material-by-material approach employed in current assessments.

Primary Sources of the Raw Materials

Even if we improve and expand our recycling efforts, primary raw materials will still play a significant part in the functioning of the economy. Exploration, extraction, production, and waste management of these raw materials all have the potential to have a negative impact on the environment. EU laws and policies, such as those on environmental impact assessments and extractive activities like mining, can help reduce the severity of these impacts.

The Raw Materials Initiative is the strategic policy framework for raw materials for the European Union. It deals with all kinds of raw materials, with the exception of those that are produced by agriculture and forestry and those that are used as fuel. Its goal is to ensure that Europe has a supply of raw materials that can be maintained over time.

Secondary Sources of the Raw Material

Waste products that are able to be recycled are reintroduced into the economy as secondary raw resources under the premise of a circular economy. These materials can be exchanged and transported in the same manner as basic raw materials, although at the moment, they still only make up a small part of the total materials utilized in the EU. The management of waste needs to be improved, for example in terms of facilities for separate collection and sorting as well as recycling, so that the amount as well as the quality of these secondary raw materials may be increased. In an effort to expedite Europe’s movement toward a more circular economy, the Commission has put out a proposal to conduct a review of waste regulations.

Environmental Criticality of Raw Materials

It has been suggested that raw materials should be designated as environmentally critical if they are of high importance in terms of their use, for example for the transformation of the energy system, and at the same time show a high aggregated environmental hazard potential in terms of the methodology developed and applied here. This would be in accordance with the proposal that raw materials should be designated as environmentally critical.

The Environmental Criticality Report provides a concise description of the methodology, and it includes the outcomes of the evaluation in the form of both an overall summary and in-depth material profiles. Comparison of the results with the EU’s 2017 list of essential raw materials is the basis for the discussion that follows. On the other hand, responsible mining practises and responsible raw material supply chains on the one hand, and reduced and circular raw material use on the other, are described as the final recommendations for action for politics, companies, and society in order to reduce the environmental impacts associated with the extraction of raw materials.

Conclusion

Following a thorough examination of current criticality assessment methodologies as well as the more complicated resource-related concerns confronting the global economy, we arrive at the following conclusions:

To begin with, existing estimates of raw material criticality are fundamentally wrong in various respects. This is primarily due to a lack of risk theory adherence, which severely limits their usefulness. Many of the key raw materials, particularly those created as by-products and primarily used in niche, albeit high-tech, applications, are unlikely to be critical.

Second, current assessments’ shortcomings do not suggest that the broader issue of raw material supply security may be ignored; rather, fresh assessments are urgently needed.