Technology

Sense of Security

We’ve always known that many of earth’s riches are finite, but now we’re really starting to feel the pinch. Libby Peake learns how governments and businesses are dealing with resource security

This article was taken from Issue 73

The twentieth century saw an unprecedented rise in our use of the earth’s resources (a rise that has continued to gain momentum since the start of the new millennium): between 1901 and 2000, the world increased its fossil fuel use by a factor of 12 and its material use by a factor of 34 (and, if we continue using resources at the current rate, we’ll need two earths by 2050). Commentators have long warned that such profligate consumption (and the attending material wastage) is not sustainable, but now with dwindling resource reserves, they’re increasingly worried not just for the environment, but also for the economy and our very way of life in the modern age. Yes, resource security is firmly on the political agenda.

While it was far from the first time any government considered the issue, a clear sign that resource security was gaining in prominence came when, in 2010, the European Union (EU) identified 14 ‘critical’ mineral raw materials for which substantial supply risks existed. The 14 minerals (many of which are required for the electronics that make modern life possible/worth living – like rare earth metals and platinum group metals) were influenced by two distinct threats: ‘supply risk’, relating to the political-economic stability of producing countries, the level of concentration of production, the potential for substitution and the recycling rate; and ‘environmental country risk’, whereby countries that currently have poor sustainability records could take steps to protect the environment, with the knock-on effect of limiting extraction and jeopardising the supply of raw materials to the EU.