This booklet demonstrates the various issues connected to human rights, development and the environment caused by the extraction, the processing and the consumption of raw materials.
Those problems cannot be tackled by more efficiency, better systems of recycling, new technologies or a better governance alone. Until now, the issues of availability, finiteness and the sustainable use of metals hardly seem to emerge in the debates on transitions in the fields of energy, mobility, agriculture and digitalisation.
The different crises that surround us – related to climate, biodiversity and resources – must be addressed jointly. The escalation of both climate and social crisis we are currently facing is reaching enormous dimensions, while these crises unfold on various levels. Tackling these crises requires a systemic rethinking as well as a paradigm shift in how we handle our planet’s natural resources. From our point of view, this publication is a contribution to the debate.
