As AK Rohstoff, PowerShift, together with 39 other organisations, calls for ‘stop crisis-intensifying action: #Implement the raw material transition”.
The crises in the field of environment, human rights and climate are intensifying and Germany continues to consume enormous amounts of metallic raw materials on a global scale. At the same time, the costs of the social and environmental damage caused by mining are externalised to the mining countries.
For the AK Rohstoff, a network of German non-governmental organisations committed to human rights, social standards and environmental protection in the mining of raw materials, a continuation of German raw materials policy is not an option.
What it needs is a political turnaround in our handling of raw materials: A turnaround in raw materials!
Germany's raw material policy must include the absolute reduction not only of our fossil but also of our metallic-mineral raw material consumption to an environmentally and climate-friendly level. In addition, the consistent and binding implementation of the highest human rights and environmental due diligence obligations by companies along their value chain is a must.
For PowerShift and the 39 other NGOs in the AK Rohstoff human rights, environmental and development organisations, the political implementation of a turnaround in raw materials is indispensable.
The concrete core elements of a consistent raw materials transition within the German raw materials policy must be:
- Reducing absolute raw material consumption to a sustainable and globally equitable level
- Implementing a circular economy: Closing material cycles and saving raw materials
- Renouncing deep-sea mining and other risk technologies
- A legal framework for corporate due diligence
- Extension of the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation
- Globally fair trade policy
- Protecting and strengthening the rights of those affected, especially indigenous peoples
