EIT RawMaterials at World Resources Forum 2017

The successful achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the implementation of the Paris Agreement require new technologies and a paradigm shift in the use of raw materials towards a circular and sustainable future. Strategic Raw Materials are indispensable for a sustainable world-wide access to energy, information, and new forms of mobility. Considering a variety of global and regional factors, however, these materials can bear a high supply risk.

According to the Brundtland report, Sustainable Development is a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are made consistent with future as well as present needs. Where material supply risks exist or availability may be accompanied by environmental and other impact, future supply and demand strategies of these materials have to be thoroughly considered.

In order to provide a sound basis for these considerations, a transparent assessment of resources – including also the impact of breakthrough technologies and their socio-economic implications – is critical for assuring the materials availability for accomplishing the Sustainable Development Goals in the long-term. The United Nations Framework Classification for Resources (UNFC) is an internationally applicable scheme for the classification and reporting of energy and mineral resources. UNFC classifies resources in three dimensions: knowledge and uncertainty about the resource, technical feasibility to attain them, and socio-economic viability. Current efforts such as the COST Action MINEA aim at integrating anthropogenic resources into Resource Classification Frameworks. Such undertakings are of fundamental importance to estimate global and regional recycling potentials in order to keep materials in the economic cycle and thus ensuring sustainable availability of Strategic Raw Materials.

WS 4: Strategic Raw Materials and Sustainable Development

The session at World Resources Forum 2017 will cover crucial aspects of Strategic Raw Materials management, their integration into classification frameworks, their potential for a circular economy, and their role in Sustainable Development. Speakers include experts in criticality assessment, resource classification, resource recovery, and sustainable management of Strategic Raw Materials.

Speakers

The workshops aims at presenting talks from speakers with a variety of backgrounds in academia, industry, governance, and international science and policy cooperation. Talks should ideally target the intersection of criticality, resource classification schemes and sustainable development goals, discuss ideas to bring together these topics, or present ongoing activities in the field.

EIT RawMaterials will be represented by Dr Karen Hanghøj, CEO at EIT RawMaterials, and Dr Roland Gauss, Thematic Officer at EIT RawMaterials.

Agenda

Please follow the link to see the agenda.