Summary:
Critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt, copper and rare earth elements are essential for technologies driving the global energy transition, from wind turbines and electric vehicles to advanced electronics. Yet the growing demand for these materials is reshaping supply chains and creating new geopolitical and environmental tensions. In a Correspondence in Nature Energy, researchers argue that current strategies to secure critical raw materials risk repeating patterns of inequality and environmental harm.
Mining and processing of these resources remain concentrated in a few countries, with China dominating rare earth mining and refining. To reduce dependence, the United States and the European Union have introduced policies such as on-shoring, re-shoring and friend-shoring, shifting production toward domestic or politically aligned regions. However, the authors warn that simply relocating extraction does not guarantee a fairer or more sustainable system.
More than half of proposed mining and processing facilities are located on or near agrarian or Indigenous lands – 73% in Latin America and 77% in Africa – raising concerns about environmental damage and social impacts in communities that have contributed little to global emissions. The researchers propose a framework they call ‘just-shoring’, which would embed justice, accountability and community participation throughout the mineral supply chain to ensure climate goals are pursued without deepening global inequalities.
— Press Release —
‘Just-shoring’ puts justice at the center of critical minerals policy
A clean energy future hinges on minerals such as copper, cobalt, lithium and rare earth elements. But the race to secure them puts pressure on the places where they are mined, often affecting communities contributing the least to climate change. With some supply and processing concentrated in just a few countries, these critical raw materials (CRMs) have also become a geopolitical flashpoint.
To secure CRM sources, the United States and European Union are moving supply chains to aligned regions – producing more at home, bringing industries back or moving operations to allied countries. But simply shuffling where minerals are mined does not automatically make extraction more ethical or sustainable.
In a commentary published in January in the journal Nature Energy, researchers propose a new framework of “just-shoring” to shift focus from competition and security to the rights and interests of those whose lands are most at risk.
“Right now, powerful – often Western – governments and firms are attempting to reshape the geographies of supply chains without changing the rules of extraction,” said lead author Jessica DiCarlo, human geographer and political ecologist at the University of Utah. “If we don’t rethink who benefits and who bears the costs, we risk repeating the same injustices of the fossil fuel era under a ‘green’ label.”
Shoring up supply chains
Critical raw materials power everything from wind turbines and electric vehicles to semiconductors and advanced defense systems. But mining and processing are concentrated in a few countries, making global supply chains particularly vulnerable; China, for example, dominates the mining and refining of rare earth elements.
Governments and firms typically pursue three strategies for securing independent CRM sources: On-shoring by developing new domestic operations; re-shoring by reestablishing previously offshored industries; and friend-shoring by relocating or expanding supply chains to geopolitically aligned countries. Reshuffling where CRM operations occur may yield components for green energy, but it also threatens health, air, water, biodiversity and livelihoods – with limited assessment of whether the project mitigates climate change at all.
More than half of the proposed facilities are located on or near agrarian or Indigenous land. Some frameworks, like the Paris Agreement and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, recommend a shift to local resource control, but only on a voluntary basis. Just-shoring pushes beyond best practices to make accountability and transparency enforceable, giving communities a legal right to co-govern throughout the entirety of the mineral lifecycle, from initial exploration and permitting through the final stages of closure and clean-up and recycling. It is guided by three questions: Who benefits? Whose risks are amplified? How much material extraction is necessary for a just transition?
“We cannot build a low-carbon future on sacrifice zones,” DiCarlo said. “Communities are told extraction is necessary for climate action, but too often they are also excluded from decision making or benefits and, instead, left to absorb the costs.”
The authors argue that the rush for critical minerals could undermine the very climate goals they are meant to serve. While decarbonization is urgent, urgency cannot be an excuse for extraction that deepens inequality or damages the environment.
Journal Reference:
Jessica DiCarlo, Raphael Deberdt, Nicole M. Smith, Scott D. Odell, Aaron Malone & Lydia L. Jennings, ‘A just energy transition requires just-shoring critical materials’, Nature Energy 11, 3–4 (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41560-025-01940-4
Article Source:
Press Release/Material by Lisa Potter | University of Utah
Featured image credit: Vlad Chețan | Pexels
