This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: In 2024, the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) came into force. The regulation is intended to secure Europe's supply of critical raw materials, especially minerals and metals such as lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements.
The EU is therefore focusing on reducing its dependence on third countries such as China, boosting domestic minerals and metals production, and expanding recycling. In a study published in Communications Earth & Environment, researchers at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) show how the pursuit of security of supply has increasingly pushed sustainability principles into the background. The study also highlights how researchers can help to strengthen sustainability principles in political discourse.
Worldwide, new technologies in renewable energy, among other fields, have led to an increase in demand for critical raw materials since the 2000s. The EU has responded with policy measures, most recently with the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), which came into force in 2024. For some time, researchers working at the intersection of ecology, economics and politics have been warning of the ecological and geopolitical risks posed by rising demand for raw materials.
However, EU policy continues to focus on securing supplies (i.e., ensuring the availability of minerals and metals) rather than reducing consumption. By analyzing political narratives, a research team at the UFZ has traced how this policy came to prevail. "We know from social science research that narratives are an important element in decision-making processes," says Professor Sina Leipold, a political scientist specializing in environmental policy and co-author of the study.
"Narratives define what is politically plausible and which proposals are regarded as unrealistic. This shows us which proposals and ideas will shape the future." The UFZ research team, led by doctoral student Theresa Herdlitschka, examined more than 180 publicly available strategy and position papers, press releases and fact sheets published between 2000 and 2024 by key stakeholders from politics, industry, academia and NGOs as part of the debate on the future of raw materials. The researchers carried out a qualitative analysis and coded them (i.e., assigned text passages to specific categories such as problem definitions and proposed solutions) to identify patterns and commonalities.
"By tracing the entire course of the debate, we were able to see which events and interpretations had the greatest influence within the various groups," says Herdlitschka. The study found that, in the early 2000s, "corporate competitiveness" was initially the dominant narrative in raw materials policy. Following the 2007/2008 financial crisis and the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, the narrative of the EU as a "pioneer in global environmental protection" emerged.
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