Recycling of Critical Minerals

As the shift to a clean energy system accelerates, substantial investments in new mines and refining capacity, especially in geographically diverse regions, will be required to produce essential minerals such as copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt and rare earths. Recycling is indispensable to the security and sustainability of critical minerals supply for clean energy transitions. While recycling does not eliminate the need for mining investment, it creates a valuable secondary supply source that reduces reliance on new mines and enhances supply security for countries importing minerals. Moreover, scaling up recycling mitigates the environmental and social impacts related to mining and refining while preventing waste from end-use technologies ending up in landfills.

The importance of unlocking the potential of recycling has long been a theme of International Energy Agency (IEA) analysis, and this was one of the key takeaways from the first-ever IEA Critical Minerals and Clean Energy Summit in September 2023. This report, which responds to the request by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy as part of its G7 agenda, aims to evaluate the current status of recycling of minerals critical to the energy transition, analyses the prospects for secondary supply under different scenarios, and outlines targeted policy recommendations to accelerate the uptake of recycling that can pave the way for more sustainable and secure future mineral supply chains.