Commenting on the UK's new Critical Minerals Strategy, Professor Rebecca Lunn FREng, Member of the National Engineering Policy Centre Working Group on Materials and Net Zero, said:
“The UK is economically and physically dependent on a host of critical minerals that are mined around the world, and demand is rising, driven in part by their use in batteries, power systems and electronics. This is something that the National Engineering Policy Centre highlighted in our report last year: the way we extract and consume materials is unsustainable, and we are not the only country competing for these finite minerals. We urgently need to reduce demand and ensure we reuse critical minerals. For example, we should recycle machinery like wind turbines and batteries to retrieve the valuable minerals at the end of their life. Government and industry should account for material needs when planning infrastructure system transformation, to avoid locking in dependencies on scarce or unsustainable resources.
“The new critical minerals strategy is a welcome step towards being able to better forecast our demand and to reuse and recycle more of these materials to support the UK’s Net Zero Strategy and improve economic security, but doesn’t alone go far enough. There is a significant role for government in avoiding supply shortages in the first place and ensuring that infrastructure and technology design accounts for this end-of-life, and we hope to see more of that policy forthcoming in the final Circular Economy Strategy.”
Notes for editors
- The National Engineering Policy Centre brings engineering thinking to the heart of policymaking, creating positive impacts for society. We are a partnership of 42 professional engineering organisations that cover the breadth and depth of our profession, led by the Royal Academy of Engineering. Together we provide insights, advice, and practical policy recommendations on complex national and global challenges.