Raw materials projects must meet highest green and social standards, say NGOs
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.
Related Articles
View All
Plug-in hybrids emit six times, on average, what official tests claim - new EU data
The car lobby is demanding that the EU scrap rules that would better reflect PHEV pollution
Oil majors double profits in Europe in latest quarter
As wildfires rage across Europe, T&E calls for a permanent tax on the windfall profits being made off the back of European drivers
How much windfall profit have oil companies made in Europe?
Just eight oil companies have made €7.5 billion in excess profits in Europe in the first half of 2026