The German Environment Agency (UBA) is hosting an international conference on environmental issues of mineral and metal supply and mining. It will bring together decision makers and experts in the thematic areas of mining, raw material supply, environmental assessment, climate change, sustainable supply chain management and sustainable resource management. About 150 participants from academia, business, up- and downstream industry, civil society and policy are expected on 19 – 20 February 2019 in Berlin.
Minerals and metals form the backbone of modern economies and are key to providing services to citizens around the globe such as housing, mobility and communications. Sustainability transitions such as the energy system transformation and megatrends such as digitization pose extra requirements on the world economy’s raw material supply. Ensuring sustainable access to abiotic raw materials on a global level for the decades to come requires discussions on how to internalize the external environmental and social costs of raw material production and a fair and just distribution of responsibilities, costs and benefits along global supply chains.
Against this background, the international conference “Raw materials & Environment 2019” aims to foster awareness of environmental issues in the national, European and international debates on responsible sourcing and responsible mining. It will feature analyses, challenges and solutions in the thematic areas of mining, raw material supply and sustainable development. Focus shall lie on environmental aspects of extracting and producing metallic minerals. Linkages to related thematic areas will be addressed so that the interdependencies between environmental protection, human rights, security of supply, distributional justice, global responsibility can be elaborated. Possibly conflicting objectives will be pointed out and discussed in order to contribute to the achievement of the integrated and indivisible sustainable development goals.