When it comes to aluminium, Christophersen reported that the circular economy was already in place, with roughly one-third of the total aluminum metal supply being recycled material.

In more mature markets such as in Europe and the US, 40% to 45% of the total metal production is based on aluminium scrap.

“A significant share of the total metal supply is secondary aluminium and part of the circular economy,” Christophersen emphasised.

Going forward, Norsk Hydro is of the view that growth in the circular part of the market will be much higher than the growth in the primary side.

The main drivers of this are expected to be customer demand, with carmakers giving much more attention to sustainable supplies, as well as regulations of countries. These include end-of-life vehicle regulations in Europe and waste shipment directives in the US.

More than two-million tons of aluminium scrap in the US and a million tons-plus of aluminium scrap in Europe currently being exported could be recycled internally.

In addition, considerable investment going into scrap-sorting technology development could also result in much more secondary aluminium being recycled within the US and Europe.

Norsk Hydro, an integrated aluminium and renewable energy company, mines and refines bauxite and smelts and recycles aluminium.

More than half of its aluminium metal production is based on secondary material, with mining and scrap dealing being completely different businesses, with recycling being very much more commercial.

“You have to deal with a lot of small suppliers on the scrap side. ‘Scrap is not scrap’. It depends a lot on the quality that you are buying, so it’s a completely different business and you need a completely different business model in order to operate in the recycling business compared to the mining business,” said Christophersen.

Assem reported that the metals value chains were already circular, “and mining plays a role in that because without the stocks from mining, there would be no circular value chain, there would be no stock to recycle".

“So, they are already playing a role, although mining has been left out of the perception of what a circular economy looks like. There is huge demand increase expected for many of the metals, including copper, and that demand is already being filled by both primary and secondary material, and it will continue to be filed by both, as it should be,” Assem said.

“There are many other drivers, like the throw-away society and the negative perception of mining that does exist, driving what is an attractive concept in the circular economy. It’s nice to think that if we can be fully circular, we won’t have to dig things out of the ground and cut down trees, for example. But the reality is that we do need both.

“There are also regulatory drivers. Europe has a lot of legislation around the circular economy itself and also around sustainable products, along different aspects of the circular value chain. In Asia, there are also lots of circular pieces of legislation in Japan, China and South Korea and they are going at it from different perspectives.

“In the US it is slightly different. There’s more of a carrot than a stick, like you would get in Europe. You also have the original-equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that are driving things from the bottom, particularly when we look at targets around recycled content for end-user products. So, that’s also driving things up the supply chain,” Assem added.

Battery Materials

In Europe, OEMs using batteries are expected to have a per battery carbon footprint, said Johnson-Poensgen, whose company is pursuing traceability in the battery value chain, which means that probably from 2026, consumers will be able to compare embodied carbon in a battery.

He reported that the battery in an electric vehicle accounts for roughly half the supply chain’s contribution to the carbon footprint in manufacturing each vehicle and recycled battery materials have half the energy requirement to turn scrap into battery-grade materials.

Indicated during the panel discussion was that, going forward, markets would likely be more intent on procuring recycled secondary material than primary material in the interests of global sustainability and mitigation against climate change.