Hotspots of Mining-Related Biodiversity Loss in Global Supply Chains and the Potential for Reduction through Renewable Electricity

Abstract

Anticipated infrastructure growth and energy transition may exacerbate biodiversity loss through increased demand for mining products. This study uses an enhanced multiregional input–output database (REX, Resolved EXIOBASE) and supply chain impact mapping (SCIM) method to assess global biodiversity loss associated with mining-related land use. We identify hotspots in the supply chain of mining products, compare the impact of fossil and renewable electricity, and estimate the share of mining in total global impacts. We found that half of the global mining-related biodiversity loss occurs in Indonesia, Australia, and New Caledonia. Major international trade flows of embodied biodiversity loss involve Indonesia’s coal exports to China and India, New Caledonia’s nickel exports to Japan and Australia, and Australia’s iron and bauxite exports to China. Key end-consumers include China’s growing infrastructure and the EU’s and USA’s household consumption. Electricity generation accounted for 10% of global mining-related biodiversity loss in 2014. The impact of coal-fired electricity was 10 times higher than that of renewables per unit of electricity generated. Globally, mining contributes to less than 1% of the total land use-related biodiversity loss, which is dominated by agriculture. Our results provide transparency in sourcing more sustainable mining products and underline synergies in fostering renewables to meet local biodiversity and global climate targets.

Long and short term implications of mineral mining operations in Sierra Leone: A review

“…Mining is a crucial sector in the sustainable development of any nation as well as the source of income that supports human survival. Nonetheless, its negative impacts on ecosystem and biodiversity cannot be underestimated especially in a developing country like Sierra Leone [61]. Besides biodiversity loss impact of mining, mining result to landslides, soil pollution, erosion, ground water contamination, disease outbreak and degradation [62].…”

How to fuel an energy transition with ecologically responsible mining

“…Second, since threats and impacts of mining vary geographically, avoiding development in biodiverse places that are important for conservation could have a huge impact on outcomes. Mining nickel outside of the world’s remaining old-growth tropical forests, for example, could reduce total biodiversity losses 10-fold ( 15 ). However, incorporating biodiversity into ETM sourcing and exploration activities is not the norm.…”

Landscape-Scale Biodiversity Impacts Analysis of Côte d’Ivoire’s Cocoa Cultivation along Export Supply Chains

“…Many studies have combined earth observations, land use statistics, and scenario analysis to obtain land use maps at regional or global scales. − These maps are crucial in land use-related biodiversity impact assessment (BIA). ,,− However, commonly used land use maps, such as HYDE 3.2 and LUH2, rely on limited observations and represent land use types as percentages within coarse grid cells. By allocating land use directly to finer grid cells instead of integrating it as a percentage, the HILDA+ and GLOBIO4 maps provide global land use distributions at ∼1 km and ∼300 m spatial resolution, respectively.…”