Minerals and metals play a central role in the global economy and will continue to provide the raw material we need for industrial processes and daily use.
Despite enormous efforts to decouple economies from resource use, the extraction of mineral resources has increased markedly in recent decades and, over the last decade, at a faster rate than economic growth. This trend is forecasted to steadily increase in the future, as we struggle to meet the mineral resource needs of a growing global population that is expected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.8 billion by 2050 and 11.2 billion by the end of the century.
Worldwide transitions towards clean energy and electric vehicles will also accelerate the trend, as renewable energy sources require larger amounts of metals than energy production from fossil fuels. Read more…
