This article is also available in Italian / Questo articolo è disponibile anche in italiano
By 2060, world resource extraction will reach an astronomical 160 billion tonnes per year. A figure that seems difficult to grasp or even imagine. In fact it is not. According to some amateur calculations, it could be about the weight of Mount Everest, a pyramid towering 8,848 metres high from base to summit. A figure that embodies humanity’s titanic effort to build infrastructure, feed itself, and surround itself with essential and unessential goods. Matter is the foundation of our economy, even when it is intangible as in the digital realm, with its world of servers, cables, and satellites. Our approach to materials is still purely extractive: we extract them raw from the earth, be it wood, sand, or dysprosium.
Our economy is only 7.2% circular, which means it is supported by reuse and recycling. We are still far from the beginning of the circular transition, a vision that this magazine has been championing for over a decade. And this lag has a tremendous impact on climate and biodiversity, as underlined by the UN’s latest Global Resource Outlook: the extraction and processing of material resources (fossil fuels, minerals, non-metallic minerals, and biomass) account for over 55% of greenhouse gas emissions and 40% of particulate matter health related impacts.
Furthermore, the growing hyper-protectionist frictions brought on by the former neoliberal United States, combined with the strained relations between various regions of the world – Russia for gas and uranium, China for rare earths, Congo for minerals and cobalt, etc. – are a cause for severe geopolitical and geoeconomic concern. On the one hand, they push for a new extractivist rush, even in the heart of a Europe that is increasingly vulnerable to commodity markets; on the other hand, they generate new expansionist aims. Meanwhile, social media, influencers, and brands promote uncontrolled consumption, often with a touch of green to entice even the most reluctant into the market. The Chinese extractivist supremacy, the anarcho-capitalism of Milei and Trump – both pushing to open new extractive frontiers, and the Italian and Hungarian anti-Europeanism are making things worse.
It is time to restore power to international actors, as long as they are thoroughly reformed. This includes the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, international civil society, and supranational structures for a new governance of raw materials (and secondary raw materials). In the service of all, yet exploited by a few, they are often catalysts of clashes and trade wars.
This issue explores the challenges and opportunities in the material market, ranging from critical raw materials to sand, from copper to recycled plastics, and from biomaterials to new reuse chains for wooden furniture, as well as paper and textiles. Two key drivers of material consumption are the development of the built environment – as cement and steel consumption continues to grow – and the global energy transition. A transition which is driving a surge in demand for essential minerals such as copper, cobalt, zinc, and lithium, as Melissa Barbanell from the World Resource Institute explains in the opening interview. The rapid growth of AI and robotics is another unsettling factor driving the demand for materials. Despite being the key challenge of the circular economy, as underlined by Cillian Lohan of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), it is still not taking off. Not even in Europe, where the two European Circular Economy Action Plans have yet to show their effect.
The effort required is immense. This is why we need fresh visions and ideas, innovative solutions, industrial synergies, and international collaborations. Renewable Matter makes its small contribution. Because every action stems from correct information.
DOWLOAD AND READ THE NEW ISSUE OF RENEWABLE MATTER: MATERIALS
Cover: Lithium #1, the photo of Davide Monteleone is part of the project CriticalMinerals – Geography of Energy