CIWM Fellow Iain Gulland, Chief Executive of Zero Waste Scotland, explains what Critical Raw Materials are and the economic opportunity they present if businesses adopt circular economy principles.
The linear, take, make, waste, economy that has prevailed for decades is no longer serving us. In fact, it’s working directly against our efforts to evolve a sustainable future in which people and the planet thrive.
The circular economy is the best tool to help us fix it. But when it comes to critical raw materials, failure to act urgently and strategically could impact our ability to decarbonise and ultimately derail our vision for a sustainable and prosperous future.
What are critical raw materials?
“Critical raw materials” are natural resources, like lithium, cobalt, nickel, platinum and palladium.
These materials are “critical” because they’re in finite supply, but are also essential components of future technologies, like renewable energy generation. They are also essential for producing rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles, smartphones, and laptops and advanced manufacturing, such as robotics.
Currently, much of the extraction of critical raw materials is environmentally unsustainable. Mining, processing, and transporting critical raw materials, among other resources, generate emissions that drive climate change, accelerate mineral resource scarcity, and contribute to other environmental impacts, including air pollution and biodiversity loss.
Our consumption of new products is a key driver of this behaviour. In Scotland alone, around four-fifths of our carbon footprint comes from the production, consumption, and waste of goods and materials.
It means that, despite all the effort that goes into harnessing these materials, our linear economy sees us disposing of them at an alarming rate.
The opportunity for Scotland
At Zero Waste Scotland, we have long been raising awareness of the link between consumption and climate change and the need to tackle consumption, if we’re serious about living within the limits of our natural environment.
Taking a circular approach to critical raw materials can help us achieve exactly that, avoiding emissions generated overseas through resource extraction and negating the need to transport them huge distances to our shores.
But the argument for circularity when it comes to critical raw materials is economic as well as environmental.
Scotland and the UK are currently heavily reliant on imports for our supply, yet we have significant stocks of critical raw materials embedded within our infrastructure.
These are in everything from oil rigs and wind turbines to the 40,000 tonnes of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) we export as waste each year.
By capturing these materials instead of exporting or disposing of them as “waste” we have an unrivalled opportunity to harness valuable components for reuse, in turn creating new economic opportunities such as jobs in reuse and remanufacturing.
What’s more, with critical raw materials so essential to “green” growth and powering our future, we must futureproof our supply. Alleviating our reliance on imports for critical raw materials can make our economy more resilient and free us from economic risks around volatile supply chains and geopolitical challenges.
Companies like Renewable Parts, which refurbishes wind turbine components, and EGG Lighting, which provides energy-efficient lighting solutions, show how innovation can strengthen domestic supply chains and support the UK’s green transition.
What should the future strategy be?
At Zero Waste Scotland, we recently teamed up with Scottish Enterprise to co-host an event exploring the critical raw materials challenge and opportunities for Scotland.
Held at the Scottish Parliament, the oversubscribed event brought together decision-makers, advisors, industry leaders, and academics, to share their expertise and insight and generate a shared understanding of the importance of critical raw materials as an issue.
One of the key takeaways from the event was the acute need for new data gathering and knowledge-sharing to effectively assess the criticality of different materials and inform our strategic approach.
That need is why we have worked together with Green Alliance to produce “Mission Critical”: a five-step plan for greater energy security for the UK and Scotland, with demand reduction and circularity at the core.
What’s more, our Material Flow Accounts paint a picture of the scale and nature of Scotland’s consumption by quantifying the materials we are extracting from Scotland’s natural environment, as well as those which are imported, exported, and wasted.
However, the critical raw materials challenge is a global and complex one and will require a collaborative effort from multiple stakeholders.
The parliamentary event was an important step in raising awareness and identifying key partners, but it was just that – an initial step on what will be a much longer journey.
Analysing the policy landscape
The good news is we are taking up this mantle within a policy landscape that boasts a strong commitment at the decision-making level to accelerating a circular economy, backed by tangible actions to get us there.
The Scottish Government recently published Scotland’s Circular Economy and Waste Route Map, setting out an ambitious plan to deliver actions that the government, in collaboration with others, must take to accelerate progress towards a circular economy between now and 2030.
Meanwhile, Scotland’s Circular Economy Act enables powers that set a framework for the future, including delivery of some of the Circular Economy and Waste Route Map interventions and requires the creation of a Circular Economy Strategy to be consulted on and reviewed every five years.
The Act is already supporting Scottish decision-makers to evolve positive sustainable change, for example, introducing a charge on single-use disposable beverage cups by 2026.
At Zero Waste Scotland, we have just launched our new Corporate Plan, with rewiring the economy at its heart.
It sets out our strategic vision for the next five years, targeting high-impact sectors like critical raw materials where we can maximise economic opportunities as well as environmental ones. Because a zero-waste, circular economy is the right choice – for people, planet, and prosperity.
Zero Waste Scotland is Scotland’s circular economy public body, working with government, businesses, and communities to rewire the economy from our current “take, make, waste” model to one where we make the most of the materials we have.
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