TY - JOUR

T1 - Towards a more sustainable metal use – Lessons learned from national strategy documents

AU - Weiser, Annika

AU - Bickel, Manuel

AU - Kümmerer, Klaus

AU - Lang, Daniel J.

PY - 2020/10/1

Y1 - 2020/10/1

N2 - There is urgent need to change the way we make use of non-renewable resources, especially metals, to sustain their availability for vital technologies associated with achieving change towards sustainability, but also to minimize negative impacts and to achieve a fair distribution of the wealth and burdens associated with their production and use. Especially public actors (state governments and administrations) have recently formulated strategies as a means to guide action fostering these goals. Yet, these strategies are very different in their character, which makes it difficult to compare them and learn how to best design strategies for a given context to contribute to the necessary change. To approach this question, we analyzed 37 national mineral resource-related strategy documents worldwide concerning their contextual conditions, motivation, and objectives. Following the general inputs for transition strategies (current and target state, transition strategy), we identified four clusters of strategy documents that share similarities in their approaches and support the development of specific recommendations for future strategy design in terms of both content and process. Designing strategies with a clear structure that interlinks a systems-based description of the current state, a clear vision (oriented at sustainability principles) and a sufficiently differentiated but at the same time flexible transition pathway improves their potential to contribute to more sustainable metal production and use.

AB - There is urgent need to change the way we make use of non-renewable resources, especially metals, to sustain their availability for vital technologies associated with achieving change towards sustainability, but also to minimize negative impacts and to achieve a fair distribution of the wealth and burdens associated with their production and use. Especially public actors (state governments and administrations) have recently formulated strategies as a means to guide action fostering these goals. Yet, these strategies are very different in their character, which makes it difficult to compare them and learn how to best design strategies for a given context to contribute to the necessary change. To approach this question, we analyzed 37 national mineral resource-related strategy documents worldwide concerning their contextual conditions, motivation, and objectives. Following the general inputs for transition strategies (current and target state, transition strategy), we identified four clusters of strategy documents that share similarities in their approaches and support the development of specific recommendations for future strategy design in terms of both content and process. Designing strategies with a clear structure that interlinks a systems-based description of the current state, a clear vision (oriented at sustainability principles) and a sufficiently differentiated but at the same time flexible transition pathway improves their potential to contribute to more sustainable metal production and use.

KW - Sustainability sciences, Communication

KW - sustainability

KW - Metals

KW - Raw material strategy

KW - Transition strategy

KW - cluster analysis

KW - Transdisciplinary studies

KW - Chemistry

U2 - 10.1016/j.resourpol.2020.101770

DO - 10.1016/j.resourpol.2020.101770

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 68

JO - Resources Policy

JF - Resources Policy

SN - 0301-4207

M1 - 101770

ER -