An Overview of Indicator Choice and Normalization in Raw Material Supply Risk Assessments

Abstract

Supply risk assessments are an integral part of raw material criticality assessments frequently used at the country or company level to identify raw materials of concern. However, the indicators used in supply risk assessments to estimate the likelihood of supply disruptions vary substantially. Here, we summarize and evaluate the use of supply risk indicators and their normalization to supply risk scores in 88 methods published until 2020. In total, we find 618 individual applications of supply risk criteria with 98 unique criteria belonging to one of ten indicator categories. The most often used categories of supply risk indicators are concentration, scarcity, and political instability. The most frequently used criteria are the country concentration of production, depletion time of reserves, and geopolitical risk. Indicator measurements and normalizations vary substantially between different methods for the same criterion. Our results can be used for future raw material criticality assessments to screen for suitable supply risk indicators and generally accepted indicator normalizations. We also find a further need for stronger empirical evidence of widely used indicators.

The Impact of Metal Mining on Global Water Stress and Regional Carrying Capacities—A GIS-Based Water Impact Assessment

“…According to this, the highest water scarcity effects were documented for Issyk-Kul Basin with a 'water consumption/water scarcity impact ratio' of 1:5, followed by Ashburton (~1:5), Huang He (1:4.7) and Colorado River Basin (1:4.4) which were characterized by high water stress intensities. Nickel, molybdenum, gold, copper, zinc 1 Low water stress but classified as 'arid and low water use' according to Gassert et al [69]. (Identification numbers of the GRDC catchment areas as well as basin-specific mining data, water consumption and water scarcity calculations are provided in the Supplementary Materials spreadsheet, see Table S3).…”

“…In particular, high-technology applications require a large variety of minerals and metals, which in some cases are referred to as critical raw materials due to increasing concerns about their limited availability and potential supply shortages. Hence, primarily during the last two decades, criticality assessment methods have been developed and constantly evolved to screen mineral commodity markets in order to identify raw materials of concern [1,2]. However, the global expansion of resource extraction, particularly mining and refining of metals, is also characterized by environmental concerns as the mining and refining of technology-relevant metals have significant impacts on ecosystems.…”

Exploring the Potential of Internet News for Supply Risk Assessment of Metals

“…In short, in many categories, we believe that our approach can complement existing approaches in many cases. Resource nationalism strategies of supplying countries 10 Embargo/trade barriers Helbig et al [6] organized the indices used in existing supply risk assessment research. They proposed the following 10 categories: concentration, scarcity, political instability, regulations, by-product dependence, dependence on primary production, demand growth, lack of substitution options, price volatility, import dependence, and others.…”

“…Helbig et al [6] reviewed existing studies from both the indicator selection and normalization perspectives. They revealed that the 88 studies reviewed employed 618 indicators, all of which can be classified into 10 categories.…”

Enhancement of the ESSENZ Method and Application in a Case Study on Batteries

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