WEMO 2025 (complet) - Flipbook - Page 57
02 Critical resources
What is criticality of resources?
Some resources, such as lithium and rare earth elements, are essential for
critical components like permanent magnets. Although typically required
in relatively small volumes, they are non-substitutable. Conversely,
materials like sand and aggregates are abundant but demanded in very
large quantities, presenting di昀昀erent types of sustainability challenges.
Energy-intensive mining and processing activities lead to environmental
damage, including CO₂ emissions (e.g., from steel and copper), impacts
on biodiversity, high water consumption, depletion and pollution, land
use change, and water and waste-related contamination (e.g., lithium,
cobalt, rare earths, and silicon).
Criticality must be assessed across 昀椀ve interconnected dimensions:
Dimensions
Key factors
Resource Availability
Global geological reserves
Geopolitical concentration of supply
Dependency & disruption risks
Dependency
Adequacy of supply
Strategic sourcing
Risk mitigation
Economics
Short-term price volatility Long-term price elasticity to demand
Market stability
Investment planning/signals to investment
Environmental Impact
Environmental compliance
Beyond carbon emissions
Open full table in browser:
Stricter compliance requirements
Biodiversity loss
Water usage
https://capgemini.turtl.co/story/world-energy-markets-outlook-2025-chapter-2/page/3/2
Waste
Land degradation (...)
Source: ?
Implications
