CSyARES - Toward a Circular System for Assessing Rare Earth Sustainability

Rare-earth metals are irreplaceable in highly demanded products such as wind turbines, electric vehicles, mobile phones, computers and the defence industry. Therefore, we need to research how to sustainably mine and process these metals. Minviro together with BEC GmbH, Circularise, Grundfos, and the global Rare Earth Industry Association (REIA) started a research project in February 2022, funded by EIT Raw Materials. The research aims to develop a blockchain-based traceability circular system to improve transparency and sustainability of supply chains involving critical and rare earth materials.
Rare earth elements (REE) are essential for the transition towards a circular economy and a critical component of many green technology solutions such as energy-efficient lights, wind turbines, hybrid and fully electric vehicles. While these metals are critical to drive sustainability targets forward, there is no certification or standard for socio-environmental reporting to assess sustainability across the REE value chain. REE resource availability is not unlimited and its extraction and processing also comes with an environmental footprint. Therefore there is a clear necessity to establish industry-wide sustainability criteria and schemes to actually certify sustainability accordingly. To reach this goal, the transparency and traceability of the REE value chains needs to be given.
The Circular System for Assessing Rare Earth Sustainability (CSyARES) project's objective is to improve raw materials supply conditions for the EU economy and the world market (Improved international resource transparency and governance leads to stability, predictability, resource-efficiency and hence a better foundation for competitiveness on a sustainable basis). The project is an industry initiative which aims to create a standardised sustainability certification for rare earth elements as well as a software system to improve data transfer between supply chain actors.
In practical terms, the CSyARES project intends to integrate Minviro's sustainability metric platform (using life cycle assessment methodology) with REIA’s sustainability standards for REE and Circularise's blockchain-based traceability software. The integrated solution provides affordable confidentiality-preserving certification to suppliers, proving their sustainability metrics. Grundfos and BEC GmbH will then test this solution to trace and measure the environmental impact of their supply chains. The project is three years long and will conclude with the delivery of the integrated platform as a purchasable software service, jointly managed by Minviro and Circularise.