Towards sustainability in mineral resources
Lingli Zhou
Abstract
Mineral resources, the source of primary metals, play a key role in developing the society. Integrating sustainability in mineral resources management is critical to sustainably sourcing and producing metals and achieving sustainable development goals. This requires foremost a clarification of how mineral resources are consumed in society including both the value chain and the supply chain of the finished metal products. The consumption of mineral resources, as well as the environmental, societal and economic impacts associated with their production, can be assessed by different methodologies including criticality analysis, materials flow analysis, and life cycle assessment, which emphasize different aspects of sustainability. To address sustainability in mineral resources, the discrete activities of mining, processing, manufacturing, distribution, and recycling and reusing will need to be integrated and each should adopt a variety of initiatives.