Raw Materials Mining in Europe: Responsible, Necessary and Ready to deliver [Promoted content]

Europe is at a critical junction, one with significant impacts on its ability to achieve its Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) objectives, key enablers of the twin sustainability and digital transition.

One path leads to dependency, meaning abandoning Europe’s mining industry in favour of high imports, less Environmental Social Governance (ESG) compliance, low strategic autonomy and diminished resilience.

The other path leads to embracing 20-30 new strategic mining projects in Europe by 2030. It leads to a sustainable and prosperous European mining industry which delivers on reinforced strategic autonomy, with ESG aligned with European values.

Why mining, and why in Europe?

Growing demand for sustainable products goes hand in hand with an ever-growing demand for mined minerals and metals. Europe already has a mining industry aligned with high European ESG practices, providing good European jobs, and ready to deliver the raw materials we need for our prosperity.

Let’s be proud: Europe is at the forefront of sustainable and responsible mining practices with its cutting-edge technologies provided by EU suppliers for EU mines, with world leading ESG practices.”. EU mining delivers on the UN Rio 1992 Conference definition by meeting “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.[1]

And let’s be realistic: Mining at world-leading ESG performance levels in the EU has undoubted sustainability benefits over mining in jurisdictions with a lack of enforcement or genuine interest in these issues. At the same time, Europe’s mining mitigates the established risk of raw materials being weaponised to disrupt supply. This means the right choice for sustainability is opening the 20-30 new strategic mine projects in Europe by 2030 to deliver on the CRMA’s 10% extraction target.

But let’s be honest: If Europe chooses to continue along the previously well-trodden path of exporting pollution and importing raw materials, then poor environmental, social, and governance performance risks hindering the supply of metals and minerals needed for clean energy technologies. And a lack of availability and disruptions of these technologies will mean we fail to deliver on the CRMA targets that will enable Europe’s sustainability transition.

Europe is experiencing a rapid and deep-seated transformation as it strives to deliver on EU Green Deal’s ambitions. Yet, today, Europe is strongly dependant on third country suppliers for many of its essential minerals and metals.

Three ways to strengthen Europe’s raw materials supply

Licence to Operate: Enabling and Maintaining know-how and operations in the EU

Right now, the EU is progressively losing the industrial-scale capacity to ensure sufficient supplies and so support the rapid scale-up of technology necessary to deliver on Europe’s twin sustainability and digital transition. In order to reverse this trend, the EU policies must focus on:

• Exploration
• Recognition of existing capacities
• Balancing regulatory permitting conditions throughout the mine life cycle
• Regulatory certainty
• Political recognition of socio-economic benefits

Growing and investing: ensuring competitiveness

The Critical Raw Materials Act is a useful and well-thought plan to make Europe meet at least 10% of its annual consumption through domestic extraction by 2030.

Yet this ambition alone will not attract the necessary levels of investment, drive expansion of research and innovation, and foster the necessary skilled workforce in sufficient numbers to unlock further sustainable and responsible mining activities in Europe by 2030.

Europe has to take a closer look at the wider framework governing mining activities beyond the Critical Raw Materials Act:

• Regulatory focus needs to shift from governing procurement to facilitate extraction
• Operational expenditures (OPEX) and capital investments (CAPEX)
• International competition.

Being responsible: Recognising operational excellence

The EU mining industry has a world-leading level of ESG performance, and we are proud of our sustainable, responsible, and clean operations. Excellence comes from a robust ESG basis, planned and implemented from the beginning of the operations. Four major elements are needed:

• Social acceptance – a shared responsibility
• Enabling cross-media synergies
• Recognition that sustainable production leads to security of supply
• Efficiency gains through sustainable production techniques.

Six steps to Europe’s resilience

We see six clear steps European policymakers must take, and with real urgency, to not only maintain but also nurture a sustainable and prosperous European mining industry, a sector central to maintaining and fostering Europe’s twin sustainability and digital transitions.

Step 1:  Getting things done – an Executive Vice President for Europe’s industrial future

Create a specific portfolio of Commission Executive Vice President ’for industrial transition and investments ‘, responsible and accountable for fostering industrial competitiveness across all related Green Deal policy areas.

Step 2: Establishing the base – An EU ‘Industry Deal’

Put in place a comprehensive EU industrial policy: an ‘Industrial Deal’ of sufficient ambition that it creates a truly competitive business case, while maintaining environmental objectives. Simply put, the EU raw materials mining industry refuses to compete on low environmental ambitions.

Step 3: ‘Think raw materials’ – check EU legislation on CRMA needs via efficient impact assessments

Ensure a rigorous, coherent approach to conducting raw materials-related impact assessments for all primary and secondary legislation that influences investment, permitting, operational costs, and skills for EU extractive industries, as well as access to responsible raw materials.

Step 4: An industry-centric climate and environmental review to balance competing priorities

The new EU industry policy mandate needs a retroactive review of existing regulatory requirements. Such a review must address the unavoidable trade-offs between the impact of mining and the multi-faceted, positive contribution of industrial activities.

Step 5: Competitive framework conditions and targeted State aid to bridge the gap and build the infrastructure for industrial transition

Ensure access to competitive input materials such as affordable, abundant, fossil-free energy, as well as predictable regulatory obligations and permitting requirements. Such conditions need to foster an effective level playing field between EU and non-EU industries based on regulatory predictability and cost-competitiveness.

Step 6: Funding and access to finance – €350bn per year globally up to 2030 needed for the climate transition[2]

The European Commission must enlarge the EU Taxonomy to include mining, and reform State aid provisions to unlock investment. In parallel, we need simplified rules on EU and national funding to make this support more predictable.

[1] https://www.un.org/en/conferences/environment/rio1992

[2] https://www.delorscentre.eu/en/publications/european-green-deal-funding