Securing Europe's Critical Raw Materials for the Future

For decades, Europe's resource strategy has largely focused on securing access to critical raw materials through imports and international partnerships. Today, critical raw materials can be described as the lifeblood of the modern green transition and digital economy¹. Furthermore, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, an average person needs 7,431 kg of copper and 1,221 kg of aluminium over the course of a lifetime. Copper is primarily used in electrical cables, electronics, plumbing, construction, and transportation due to its excellent electrical conductivity². Aluminium is commonly used in transportation, construction, consumer goods, and electrical transmission due to its lightweight strength³. This challenges the surging demand for minerals across countries that lack domestic reserves^{1, 4}. For Europe, this presents a challenge, as the continent has limited domestic reserves and relies heavily on imports to meet its growing demand for these materials. This dependence exposes the EU to geopolitical tensions, and price volatility⁵.

Yet, as geopolitical tensions and supply chain disruptions accelerate demand⁶ for minerals such as lithium, cobalt, aluminium, rare earth elements and copper⁷, the question arises: To what extent do Europe's existing material stocks represent an untapped source of critical resources, and how can they contribute to a more resource-resilient Europe?

Energy security has long been a strategic priority for the European Union. Recent disruptions, particularly the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia–Ukraine war, have reinforced the need to strengthen the resilience of the EU's energy⁸. Traditionally, resilience has been understood primarily in terms of reducing dependence on imported oil and gas. However, the European Union's transition to a low-carbon economy has broadened this perspective to include the supply chains of clean energy technologies. Technologies such as solar and wind power, battery storage, and electric vehicles all rely on a reliable and affordable supply of critical raw materials (CRMs)⁹. Minerals including lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, and graphite are therefore essential to achieving the EU's decarbonization objectives and ensuring a resilient energy transition. This dependence is illustrated in Figure 1, which shows the importance of critical raw materials across different clean energy technologies.

Figure 1. Critical mineral needs for clean energy technologies

Figure 2. Mineral demand in a nutshell

As illustrated in Figure 2¹⁰, Europe's climate policies set in motion a chain of developments that increases the demand for critical raw materials. The transition towards carbon neutrality accelerates the deployment of renewable energy technologies and electric vehicles, which in turn drives demand for batteries and the minerals required to manufacture them. As the use of technologies such as wind power, solar photovoltaics, and battery storage expands, demand for critical minerals (including lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper), continues to grow. This creates increased pressure on mining, greater competition for limited mineral resources, and heightened concerns regarding supply security and resource availability.

Europe's Critical Raw Material Challenge

Critical raw materials underpin many of the technologies that are expected to shape Europe's future. Demand for lithium, rare earth elements, cobalt and graphite is projected to increase significantly over the coming decades as electrification, renewable energy deployment and digitalisation accelerate¹¹.

Yet, the EU is heavily dependent on imports of critical raw materials. While Europe has significant downstream industrial capacity, domestic extraction contributes marginally to global output of metals and minerals¹². China has established a dominant position, especially in refining, leaving the EU with a serious dependence on Chinese processing capacity. In some cases, Europe’s reliance on China for certain metals reaches 75%, or even 100%. For example, the EU depends for 100% of its heavy rare earth elements and around 97% of its magnesium supply, while China is also the EU's main supplier of gallium and germanium¹³. Additionally, the risk of Chinese export restrictions on key raw materials hangs like a sword over European industry. China has shown it is prepared to weaponise supply chains, by imposing export controls, notably through restrictions on rare-earth element exports in 2009 and 2012¹⁴, and controls on critical minerals and related products from 2023 and 2025. This shows the risks associated with external dependency in critical supply chains⁹. The EU also faces growing competition from Japan and the United States, both of which are actively securing CRM supply through third-country partnerships and domestic investment¹⁵.

Urban Mining: A Domestic Source of Critical Raw Materials

Every year, millions of products such as mobile phones, cars, buildings, and infrastructure components reach the end of their useful lives. Yet what is often perceived as waste is, in reality, a vast reservoir of valuable materials. Metals, concrete, glass, plastics, electronic components, and other resources are frequently discarded, incinerated, or recycled into lower-value products instead of being recovered for future use¹⁶.

Urban mining refers to the recovery of valuable materials from end-of-life products, infrastructure, and waste streams that would otherwise be discarded through landfilling or incineration. These recovered resources include both common materials, such as metals,plastic and critical raw materials¹⁷. Urban mining follows the three Rs: reduction, reuse and recycle¹⁰. The extraction of rare materials is done through chemical and mechanical processes. Almost any material in a city can be used for urban mining. Helsinki demonstrates the growing role of urban mining in recovering critical raw materials through the collection and recycling of lithium-ion batteries and electronic waste. These waste streams contain valuable materials such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper that can be recovered and reused in battery manufacturing. This helps the city reduce dependence on imported raw materials¹⁸.

Recent research from the EU-funded FutuRaM project and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) suggests that improving the collection, recovery, and recycling of these materials could fundamentally reshape Europe's resource strategy¹⁹. They found that improved recycling and recovery systems could enable Europe to recover between 4.1 and 5.7 million tonnes of critical raw materials annually by 2050. Under an ambitious circular economy scenario, these secondary materials could replace up to 56% of Europe's primary raw material demand^{19, 20, 21}. This would reduce reliance on imports from countries such as China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Australia¹⁵ significantly.

Environmental benefits of Urban mining

Securing a sustainable supply of secondary raw materials through recycling calls for effective urban mining governance that improves collection systems, high-quality recycling. This further calls for collaboration across governments, industries, and consumers²². Urban mining strengthens resource security and offers significant environmental benefits by reducing the need for primary resource extraction and supporting the transition towards a circular economy.

Compared with conventional mining, recovering materials from end-of-life products, buildings, and infrastructure reduces greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, land disturbance and waste generation. Primary mining often requires large-scale transport and mineral processing, all of which are energy-intensive and associated with significant environmental impacts. By extending the life cycle of existing materials through reuse and recycling, urban mining lowers the demand for virgin raw materials and reduces the environmental footprint associated with their extraction and processing²³.

The environmental benefits are particularly evident in the construction sector, where buildings and infrastructure represent one of the largest depots of materials within European cities. A life cycle assessment conducted in Switzerland found that applying urban mining principles and designing buildings for future disassembly reduced environmental impacts by at least 16% across every impact category examined. At the national level, adopting circular construction practices was estimated to avoid between 68,000 and 117,000 tonnes of CO₂-equivalent emissions over a five-year period through increased reuse and recycling of construction materials²³.

Policy Response: The Critical Raw Materials Act

The European Union’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) entered into force in May 2024, and was introduced to strengthen the European Union's access to the raw materials that are essential for its economy and the green transition²⁴. The Act seeks to improve the security and sustainability of critical raw material supply by reducing supply risks, increasing domestic extraction, processing, and recycling capacity, and promoting more resilient and diversified supply chains^{25, 26, 27}. It supports the responsible sourcing of raw materials and improves the EU's competitiveness in sectors such as clean energy, digital technologies, aerospace, and defence²⁵. Simultaneously, the aim for the EU is to no longer source more than 65% of each strategic raw material from a single third country²⁶.

The Act is expected to influence both the European Union and the countries that supply it with critical raw materials. By encouraging greater diversification of supply sources and reducing dependence on individual third-country suppliers, the Act is likely to reshape existing trade relationships. Strategic partnerships with trusted countries may strengthen cooperation and improve supply security, but countries outside these partnerships could face reduced access to the EU market. At the same time, achieving the objectives of the CRMA will require substantial industrial and economic transformation within the EU. Close collaboration among governments, businesses, investors, and citizens will therefore be essential to promote responsible investment. It will also build a more secure and resilient critical raw materials supply chain²⁶.

Currently, the CRMA sets an ambitious target that, by 2030, at least 25% of the EU's annual consumption of strategic raw materials should come from domestic recycling²⁸. Furthermore, in March 2025, the European Commission approved 47 Strategic Projects across 13 Member States, several of which focus specifically on recovering critical raw materials from batteries, electronic waste, and industrial waste streams. Examples include NorthCYCLE in Sweden, which recovers lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and graphite from end-of-life batteries, Fortum Hydromet in Finland, which recovers lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel, and graphite through hydrometallurgical recycling, and MagFactory in France, which recycles rare earth elements from permanent magnets. These projects are intended to strengthen Europe's domestic supply of critical raw materials while reducing dependence on imported primary resources.

Europe's future in Resource Security

Europe's future resource security will depend on securing new sources of critical raw materials and making better use of the resources already available within its borders. As demand for minerals continues to grow alongside the green and digital transitions, Europe's dependence on imports will remain a strategic vulnerability unless domestic supply can be strengthened. Urban mining offers an opportunity to recover valuable materials from products and industrial waste that have traditionally been overlooked.

However, unlocking this potential will require more than improved recycling technologies. Achieving a resilient supply of critical raw materials will depend on coordinated action across the entire value chain, including better product design, higher collection rates, investment in recycling infrastructure, innovation in recovery technologies, and effective implementation of the Critical Raw Materials Act. At the same time, strategic international partnerships and responsible primary mining will continue to play an important role in meeting Europe's future material needs.

Rather than viewing waste as an environmental challenge, Europe has an opportunity to recognise it as a strategic resource. By combining circular economy principles with industrial innovation and forward-looking policy, urban mining could become a key pillar of Europe's long-term resource resilience. Although urban mining is unlikely to eliminate the need for imported raw materials, it has the potential to significantly reduce supply risks and strengthen Europe's economic competitiveness. In doing so, urban mining can support Europe's transition towards a more sustainable, resilient, and secure future. Shall we?

This article is part of The Outside World, ftrprf’s very own research center.

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