Consistent information on raw material value chains is key for sustainable resources management, to guarantee supply of raw materials and strengthen the EU industry competitiveness. The European Commission launched the development of Material System Analysis (MSA) studies in 2015, to assess the flows of materials through the EU economy, including extraction, stock accumulation and end-of-life management e.g., through disposal or recovery in the EU. The MSA studies consider the entire life cycle of a selected material. This highlights hotspots and bottlenecks in a material value chain. Awareness of weak points in the value chain can guide actions designed to increase the resilience of the supply chain, also in the face of disrupting events. MSA, by virtue of accounting for materials in stock, can also help identifying opportunities to source materials from urban mine or waste streams, allowing to improve the overall circularity of the EU. The systemic view of the MSA also lends itself to develop and support scenarios and outlooks.
The current report includes the MSA for the raw materials: barytes, bismuth, hafnium, helium, natural rubber, elemental phosphorus, scandium, tantalum and vanadium. These materials have been or are considered critical raw materials in the EU.
The materials cycles analysed show a very strong dependence on imports along the value chain. The EU is highly dependent on imports of primary materials and intermediate products and has a consolidated manufacturing stage for all the materials analysed (except for helium).
The EU is efficient in collecting end-of-life products, however most of the targeted materials are lost due to in-use dissipation, non-functional recycling, or disposal in other waste streams. This indicates that the EU is not yet able to decrease its dependency of primary material using secondary materials domestically recycled. However, for some materials (e.g. elemental phosphorus) significant efforts are undertaken to change this situation in the future to improve the EU circularity.
The developed MSA are comprehensive datasets that may provide crucial knowledge to help the development and monitoring of EU polices including: the EU list of Critical Raw Materials, the new EU Industrial Strategy, the Green Deal transition plan, the EU Raw Materials Initiative and the EU Circular Economy Action Plan.
TORRES DE MATOS Cristina;
DEVAUZE Chloé;
PLANCHON Mariane;
WITTMER Dominic;
EWERS Birte;
AUBERGER Andreas;
DITTRICH Monika;
LATUNUSSA Cynthia;
EYNARD Umberto;
MATHIEUX Fabrice;
2021-07-08
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC125101
978-92-76-37768-9 (online),
1831-9424 (online),
EUR 30704 EN,
OP KJ-NA-30704-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC125101,
10.2760/677981 (online),
