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CGR Critical Raw Materials

Executive summary
1. Introduction
2. Measuring the circularity of critical raw materials
3. Baseline: The five critical raw material systems
Copper
Nickel
Silicon
Lithium
Cobalt
4. Circularity scenarios
Material stocks
System resilience
Circularity's limits
Decarbonisation pathways
Material flows
Secondary supply
5. Solutions and next steps
About

Solutions and next steps

Bridging the gap between supply and demand in critical raw materials

The preceding chapters outline supply and demand dynamics, including pressures on material systems, and examine the potential contribution of circularity to closing supply gaps and building more resilient material systems. This chapter gives recommendations for business, financial, and policy stakeholders.

As has been established throughout this analysis, the five materials examined behave in distinct ways, with distinct characteristics, and recommendations at a more granular level would therefore vary by material. Here, they are kept relatively high-level, with material-specific examples brought in where useful. Lifetime-extension interventions are particularly relevant to silicon, for instance, while end-of-life infrastructure improvements are particularly relevant to ‘younger’ metals such as lithium.

These recommendations are made at a global level. More concrete recommendations would vary country-to-country. Resilience, for example, looks different depending on whether a country is a producer or a consumer nation, and countries do not share a common understanding of what value addition means—for some it centres on domestic processing and refining, for others on capturing downstream manufacturing industries such as battery-cell assembly or vehicle production.185 Reconciling these different realities and strategic objectives is therefore a task for a more detailed analysis rather than one with a global scope, and one that must weigh social and environmental value alongside economic value. With this context in mind, four overarching recommendations emerge from the analysis for the integration of circular interventions into critical raw material (CRM) systems.

Four priorities for more circular and resilient critical raw material value chains

The path forward

The analysis indicates that ambitious circularity can materially reshape critical material supply and demand, with its greatest value emerging over time. Its contribution often arrives later than the demand it is intended to offset, but it remains important to reducing total primary material demand by 2050.

What follows is largely a question of sequencing. Material entering use this decade determines what can be recovered in the next; recovery capacity built in the 2030s determines supply availability in the 2040s; and the measurement frameworks adopted today determine which strategies are pursued at all. The decisions made now will therefore shape the critical material systems of the future.

Circularity can improve material efficiency, extend product lifetimes, and bring critical materials back into use. Continued, responsible primary extraction and substitution will remain important where circular strategies cannot meet demand, while managing demand itself will be critical to keeping material requirements within feasible limits.

The persistence of supply shortfalls across material systems, even with ambitious circularity interventions, raises a more fundamental question about demand: what are critical raw materials being used for, and who decides? With competing demands for these materials and hard constraints on supply, deciding which uses to prioritise becomes as important as using materials more efficiently. This addresses demand at its source, rather than only managing it once it has been created.

Circularity is therefore a core pillar of a resilient material transition. Building resilience will depend on getting the sequence right: reducing demand where possible, extending material use, preparing now for future recovery, and ensuring responsible primary supply where it remains necessary. It also means asking harder questions about what we use critical materials for in the first place. The choices made today will shape whether the material systems of tomorrow are resilient, resource-efficient, and capable of delivering the energy transition while potentially minimising environmental and social impacts.

References

  1. 185. World Economic Forum. (2024). Translating critical raw material trade into development benefits (White paper, Rep.). Geneva: World Economic Forum. Retrieved from: WEF website
  2. 186. World Economic Forum. (2024). Translating critical raw material trade into development benefits (White paper, Rep.). Geneva: World Economic Forum. Retrieved from: WEF website
  3. 187. Supply-chain stress testing, time-to-recover (TTR) and time-to-survive (TTS): work by David Simchi-Levi (MIT). More information available: Ham, B. (2022, June 15). Companies use MIT research to identify and respond to supply chain risks: Pinpointing risks can also help businesses save money as they become more resilient. Retrieved from: MIT website; Dolgui, A., Ivanov, D., & Simchi-Levi, D. (2025). Stress tests for supply chains: Towards resilience and viability. International Journal of Production Research, 63(9), 3254–3258. doi:10.1080/00207543.2025.2483113
  4. 188. Copper is an example where high circularity ambition absorbs almost the entire impact of every disruption type modelled under a low decarbonisation pathway. Lithium and silicon, on the other hand, show less absorption of shocks simply by increasing ambition. The details and caveats explaining this are explored in more depth in Chapter 4\.
  5. 189. Ferro, P., & Bonollo, F. (2019). Design for recycling in a critical raw materials perspective. Recycling, 4(4), 44\. doi:10.3390/recycling4040044
  6. 190. An example of this from the analysis is bulk nickel volumes that are built into iron and stainless steel applications and are recycled as part of that application, but can never be recovered as nickel again. This is also illustrated in: Nakamura, S., Kondo, Y., Nakajima, K., Ohno, H., & Pauliuk, S. (2017). Quantifying recycling and losses of Cr and Ni in steel throughout multiple life cycles using matrace-alloy. Environmental Science \& Technology, 51(17), 9469–9476. doi:10.1021/acs.est.7b01683
  7. 191. World Economic Forum. (2025). Materials: Is this the new frontier for international collaboration? Retrieved from: WEF website
  8. 192. Examples of existing initiatives like this that operate on a larger scale are initiatives such as the Global Battery Alliance's Battery Passport pilots, and UN Transparency Protocol as a framework for digital product passport (DPP) schemes worldwide. Global Battery Alliance. (2024). 2024 Battery Passport pilots. Retrieved from: Global Battery Alliance website; UN/CEFACT. (2025). Recommendation No. 49: Transparency at Scale – Fostering Sustainable Value Chains. Retrieved from: UN website
  9. 193. OECD. (2026). Enhancing resilience through traceability: Insights from lithium and nickel supply chains in Latin America and Southeast Asia. OECD, Paris. Retrieved from: OECD website
  10. 194. IEA. (2025). The Role of Traceability in Critical Mineral Supply Chains. Retrieved from: IEA website
  11. 195. Silicon illustrates why this distinction matters. By the end of the projection period, 4.3 million tonnes of end-of-life material are uncollected, disposed of, or lost after collection, compared with 1.1 million tonnes lost at the semi-fabrication stage—around 25% of total end-of-life losses. Yet the losses further up the value chain are higher-value losses. Targeting upstream losses could therefore do more to improve silicon material efficiency than addressing downstream losses, which are largely unrecoverable at end-of-life, regardless of intervention.
  12. 196. Brailovsky, P., Baumann, K., Held, M., Briem, A.-K., Wambach, K., Gervais, E., Herceg, S., Mertvoy, B., Nold, S., & Rentsch, J. (2023). Insights into circular material and waste flows from c-Si PV industry. EPJ Photovoltaics, 14, 5\. doi:10.1051/epjpv/2022029
  13. 197. Highlighted in this source for copper specifically: Loibl, A., & Tercero Espinoza, L. A. (2021). Current challenges in copper recycling: Aligning insights from material flow analysis with technological research developments and industry issues in Europe and North America. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 169, 105462\. doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105462
  14. 198. European Environment Agency. (2024). Measuring the quality of recycling. Briefing no. 15/2024. Retrieved from: EEA website
  15. 199. International Energy Agency. (2025). Global critical minerals outlook 2025 (Rep.). Paris: International Energy Agency. Retrieved from: IEA website
  16. 200. World Economic Forum. (2026). Stronger materials supply chains require a new form of global cooperation. Retrieved from: WEF website
  17. 201. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/12/materials-is-this-the-new-frontier-for-international-collaboration/&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1787655767906441&usg=AOvVaw2kDXCFxcBui3ynqgsu4s3f" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="text-blue-400 underline hover:text-blue-300">For example: Digital Product Passport (DPP) schemes and the UN Transparency Protocol (UNTP), which establish shared, transparent data frameworks; the Global Battery Alliance's Battery Passport pilots, which set shared traceability and verification standards; regional circular economy hubs and multi-stakeholder take-back schemes, which streamline collection and sorting across firms; and proposals such as a planetary trust for transition minerals, intended to align producing nations and technology developers around fair, transparent resource markets.
  18. 202. Wojewska, A. N., Staritz, C., Tröster, B., & Leisenheimer, L. (2024). The criticality of lithium and the finance-sustainability nexus: Supply-demand perceptions, state policies, production networks, and financial actors. The Extractive Industries and Society, 17, 101393\. doi:10.1016/j.exis.2023.101393
  19. 203. International Energy Agency. (2025). Global critical minerals outlook 2025 (Rep.). Paris: International Energy Agency. Retrieved from: IEA website
  20. 204. Samsurin Welch, Khaled Soufani. (2025). A new method for assessing circular business cases. MIT Management Review. Retrieved from: MIT website
  21. 205. Kopgroep Circulair Financieren. (2024). A practical guide to the Circular Risk Scorecard Guidance on the origin, goal and use of the Circular Risk Scorecard. Retrieved from: Retrieved from: KCF website
  22. 206. One example is the framework established by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure, which requires reporting on material risks, including rising raw material costs, but only assesses this through a climate-risk lens.
  23. 207. CircularInvest. (2026). Financing a European Circular Transition: From investment-readiness to investment alignment. Retrieved from: CircularInvest website
  24. 208. Circle Economy. (2025). The circularity gap report finance. Retrieved from: Circle Economy website
  25. 209. Initiatives such as Kopgroep Circulair Financieren and the Circular Risk Scorecard already showcase this, translating CRM resource risk into decision-relevant metrics for financiers, scoring dependency on specific critical raw materials, ownership of those materials, and the stability of CRM value chain relationships.
  26. 210. International Energy Agency. (2025). Global critical minerals outlook 2025 (Rep.). Paris: International Energy Agency. Retrieved from: IEA website
  27. 211. Wojewska, A. N., Staritz, C., Tröster, B., & Leisenheimer, L. (2024). The criticality of lithium and the finance-sustainability nexus: Supply-demand perceptions, state policies, production networks, and financial actors. The Extractive Industries and Society, 17, 101393\. doi:10.1016/j.exis.2023.101393
  28. 212. Wojewska, A. N., Staritz, C., Tröster, B., & Leisenheimer, L. (2024). The criticality of lithium and the finance-sustainability nexus: Supply-demand perceptions, state policies, production networks, and financial actors. The Extractive Industries and Society, 17, 101393\. doi:10.1016/j.exis.2023.101393
  29. 213. International Energy Agency. (2025). Global critical minerals outlook 2025 (Rep.). Paris: International Energy Agency. Retrieved from: IEA website
  30. 214. For example, SQM and Livent have issued green bonds explicitly to finance extraction expansion—SQM raising \$700 million and Livent \$238 million—despite green bonds in mining and metals overall capturing just over 1% of total green bond volumes\]. Wojewska, A. N., Staritz, C., Tröster, B., & Leisenheimer, L. (2024). The criticality of lithium and the finance-sustainability nexus: Supply-demand perceptions, state policies, production networks, and financial actors. The Extractive Industries and Society, 17, 101393\. doi:10.1016/j.exis.2023.101393
  31. 215. Voskoboynik, D. M., & Andreucci, D. (2021). Greening extractivism: Environmental Discourses and Resource Governance in the ‘lithium triangle.’ Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 5(2), 787–809. doi:10.1177/25148486211006345
  32. 216. Wojewska, A. N., Staritz, C., Tröster, B., & Leisenheimer, L. (2024). The criticality of lithium and the finance-sustainability nexus: Supply-demand perceptions, state policies, production networks, and financial actors. The Extractive Industries and Society, 17, 101393\. doi:10.1016/j.exis.2023.101393
  33. 217. This can be highlighted through research done on copper contamination in steel scrap, which demonstrates that mass-based targets can fail to account for quality. This is also demonstrated in industry: in OECD research, a survey of 90 companies operating across CRM value chains discovered that ore grade, purity and chemical form are the least-tracked traceability category, which further demonstrates lack of focus on mineral quality. Daehn, K. E., Cabrera Serrenho, A., & Allwood, J. M. (2017). How will copper contamination constrain future global steel recycling? Environmental Science \& Technology, 51(11), 6599–6606. doi:10.1021/acs.est.7b00997; OECD. (2026). Enhancing Resilience Through Traceability Insights from Lithium and Nickel Supply Chains in Latin America and Southeast Asia. Retrieved from: OECD website
  34. 218. World Economic Forum. (2025). Materials: Is this the new frontier for international collaboration? Retrieved from: WEF website
  35. 219. Nordic Council of Ministers. (2025). Evaluation of potential measures to reach the recycling benchmarks of the Critical Raw Materials Act. Better recycling of critical raw materials in the Nordics – Second report. Retrieved from: Nordic Co-operation website
  36. 220. OECD. (2026). Enhancing Resilience Through Traceability: Insights from Lithium and Nickel Supply Chains in Latin America and Southeast Asia. Retrieved from: OECD website
  37. 221. Pimenow, S., Pimenowa, O., & Rembisz, W. (2026). Circular economy pathways for Critical Raw Materials: European Union Policy Instruments, secondary supply, and sustainable development outcomes. Sustainability, 18(2), 562\. doi:10.3390/su18020562
  38. 222. International Energy Agency. (2024). Recycling of critical minerals: Strategies to scale up recycling and urban mining. Retrieved from: IEA website
  39. 223. International Energy Agency. (2026). Designing an effective strategic stockpiling system for critical minerals. Retrieved from: IEA website
  40. 224. Developments here have already materialised: the UNECE-ISO Digital Product Passport, building on the UN Transparency Protocol, is being formalised as ISO/PWI 25534-1, while the Global Battery Alliance's Battery Passport has run ten pilots across Australia, Chile and China—showing shared frameworks can advance through voluntary, industry-led co-ordination alone. OECD. (2026). Enhancing resilience through traceability: Insights from lithium and nickel supply chains in Latin America and Southeast Asia. OECD, Paris. Retrieved from: OECD website
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The Circularity Gap Report is an initiative of Circle Economy, an impact organisation dedicated to accelerating the transition to the circular economy.

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