Critical Raw Materials – Strategies for resilience

In short, raw materials are deemed critical if they are essential for an important sector of the economy and there is a risk of shortage in supply (EU Commission, 2023). The most recent EU listing includes 34 strategic and critical raw materials. Criticality is based not only on "geological availability", which refers to the material amounts still present in the ground, it also considers economic, political, environmental, and social factors that affect access to raw materials. By definition, the availability of CRMs is limited – which has caused growing concerns about the long-term supply.

The circular economy offers a sustainable approach to enhancing the resilience of the CRM supply chain. In our second article, we explore how to harness the circular economy's potential to reduce CRM demand, what strategic benefits a circular economy implementation can generate, and devise actionable steps to foster a sustainable CRM value chain.