ORIENTING - D1.4 Critical evaluation of material criticality and product-related circularity approaches

The deliverable presents a critical evaluation of existing approaches addressing material criticality and circularity. These topics are dealt with in separate parts.
PART 1: Material criticality
Key ongoing transitions towards a more digital and sustainable future rely extensively on technologies that require critical metals and minerals for their production. These are called “critical raw materials” (CRMs) because of their strategic importance and supply-associated risks (be it for resource availability, geopolitical reasons or other issues). Therefore, several jurisdictions have developed strategies targeting to secure the supply of their economies with these critical raw materials (the EU and USA most notably). As an input and application of such strategies, methods for material criticality assessment are crucial and a substantial number of methods with varying scopes and indicators has been developed over the past 15 years.
For the purpose of this deliverable, CRMs are defined according to European Commission (2017b) as “raw materials of high importance to the economy of the EU and whose supply is associated with high risk”.
As a contribution to the overall objective of the ORIENTING project, i.e., to establish an operational Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) framework for products (including materials), a review and evaluation of methods for criticality assessments in terms of supply risks is carried out in this report. This also includes a closer look at the relationship between critical raw material assessments and assessment methods within other sustainability pillars, especially related to environmental life cycle assessment (LCA).
PART 2: Product-related circularity
Striving for the political target of a Circular Economy (CE), as exemplified in the European Commission’s (EC) Circular Economy Action Plan 2.0 published in 2020, different circularity metrics have been developed that are used in a variety of contexts and at different levels. CE seeks to eliminate the concept of waste, that exists in the current linear economy, and minimise the dependence on virgin materials. At a macro level, CE is fundamental to achieve sustainable development, with a systemic change needed at an economic, organisational and product level. In the context of the ORIENTING project, focused on the assessment of products, CE and circularity are intended to promote the extended and/or cyclical use of products, as well as their parts and materials. However, a universally agreed definition of Circular Economy is lacking at present -which might be remedied through a new standard being produced within the ISO Technical Committee 323.
As said, the focus of ORIENTING is on the circularity of products. In companies, ecodesign is used to “design in” strategies related to circularity that include materials reduction, durability, disassembly, refurbishment, recycling (see for example IEC 62430:2019). The concept of “material efficiency” is often used to refer to strategies aimed at reducing material input and generation of waste associated from products. CE strategies have the goal to promote the availability of more sustainable products on the market, which ultimately requires to assess their environmental, economic and social impacts. In this respect, ORIENTING will embed CE aspects in the overall analysis of environmental, social and economic impacts (LCA, sLCA and LCC). The work completed within ORIENTING may also make a useful contribution to the new Sustainable Product Initiative (SPI) of the European Commission.
Against this background, Part 2 of this deliverable has the following objectives: identifying relevant approaches, concepts, methods and indicators related to circularity of products to be integrated into ORIENTING’s LCSA framework; conducting a critical evaluation of a selection of the most promising indicators for use in LCSA; providing recommendations for methodological developments that feed into WP2 of the ORIENTING project. These objectives are achieved through a combination of systematic literature review, expert interviews and the analysis of prioritized methods and tools based on pre-defined evaluation criteria.