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Raw materials projects must meet highest green and social standards, say NGOs

February 9, 2023

12 green NGOs write to the Commission and the Swedish Presidency of the EU, calling on them to use the Critical Raw Materials Act to ensure that the sourcing of these minerals does not replace one bad dependency with another.

Transport & Environment, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, WWF, Friends of the Earth, European Environmental Bureau, Birdlife Europe, and big German and Spanish NGOs Deutsche Umwelthilfe and Ecologistas en Acción call for the CRM Act to do 3 things:

  • Uphold the current environmental protections on water, habitats and chemicals (eg Reach, Water Framework, Habitats Directive). But also to urgently review the Extractive Waste Directive to improve rules on tailings management and incentivise re-mining at existing mines;
  • Set clear and ambitious targets for recycling of raw materials and the use of old mining sites.
  • Require the measuring of carbon footprints and broader environmental impacts for imported and domestic metals.

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