Ensuring that the supply of renewable energy needed to achieve these goals is met will require a sharp increase in production, and a more responsible use, of critical raw materials. Whilst recycling can provide an increasing portion of these materials, recycling alone cannot meet the projected demand, which implies that further mining will be required if the EU is to meet its climate goals.

Sourcing raw materials from inside the EU, where suitable environmental, social, and political regulations could be implemented, may be instrumental in securing an ethical provision of metals. However, mineral projects face complex challenges in the EU.

These challenges include the:

The purpose of the VECTOR project is to explore these challenges. The consortium of 18 partners aims to understand the origin, connections, and complexities of the challenges, and consequently to develop solutions that may be used to address them. A major objective is to include all stakeholders, including the often overlooked and underappreciated general public, in a dialogue about the sourcing of critical raw materials within Europe.

The project partners will investigate potential solutions that incorporate as many perspectives as possible, address environmental concerns, and solve technical challenges. This will result in pathways towards sustainable, responsible mineral exploration in Europe, which can serve as a reference for the rest of the world.”

Using surveys, VECTOR aims to identify and improve the implementation of these essential values in business to develop long lasting impact that centres on your interests. This will be performed through the development of tools such as a ‘Social Acceptance index’ that can be communicated easily and clearly to decision makers, allowing them to quickly understand the impact of future actions.

Geoscience

Taken together, these methods will allow scientists to use low-cost, portable and minimally disruptive technologies to analyse the subsurface and determine if they are close to a useful mineral deposit. This represents a marked improvement from traditional exploration techniques, and limits the need for activities such as extensive drilling, which may disrupt both the local environment and communities.

To ensure that our findings are understandable for all, and we can provide information that addresses the full scale of the issue, we aim to integrate both sides of our analyses. Using the data that we collect, we will develop a single interface that allows all of our findings to be accessed by anyone, in one place and in an easy-to-understand format, helping you to become more informed about the current state of affairs.