Resource efficiency, the circular economy, sustainable materials management and trade in metals and minerals

A more resource efficient and circular economy will help to decouple global economic growth from natural resource use, decrease environmental degradation and improve energy efficiency. Existing circular economy policies have been largely focused at the national level. However, trade policies can promote greater resource efficiency and circularity by enabling economies of scale in recycling; by ensuring regulatory coherence between different frameworks for recyclable material; and by helping to address the problem of exports to countries without adequate recycling facilities. The vast majority of trade in end-of-life material ‒ waste and scrap ‒ is in metallic material. Recycling metallic waste and scrap means less mining of non-renewable resources, and producing the most commonly used metals from recycled material uses 60-97% less energy than producing them from mined material. Moreover, demand for some minor metals and minerals, such as lithium, cobalt and rare earth elements (REE) used in energy storage, wind turbines and other environmental goods is projected to increase sharply as the global economy strives to become more carbon-neutral. Recycling these low-volume minerals will become urgent. Trade in these recovered materials will be particularly important in order to allow economies of scale for recycling operations as technologies evolve.