Recommendations for assessing materials criticality

Abstract

This paper provides recommendations for assessing the criticality of materials (metals and non-fuel minerals), including the need for context-dependent assessment methods, providing a framework for conducting criticality assessments. Materials criticality captures concerns over the accessibility of materials, as the product of assessing a material's 'supply risk' and the impact of a supply restriction. Through a review of selected studies, problems with criticality assessments are discussed, highlighting how these become particularly important when the results of assessments are used in decision making. Considering how the results of criticality assessments are used in decision making highlights how criticality exhibits some of the characteristics of a 'complex context'. Building on predefined attributes of effective decision support in complex contexts, recommendations are made on how these problems can be addressed to better assess criticality in the future. These also include building on metric-based assessment methods by developing scenarios of future material supply and demand.