Camborne School of Mines is the UK’s multidisciplinary mining school. Its research, education and industry help facilitate the greatly increased production of metals and minerals required for the energy transition and the digital world. We strive to produce these materials in ways that promote sustainable development and onwards good supply chain stewardship. Circular economy (CE) principles are fundamental to this and apply to all stages in the value chain, event to the first stages of geological exploration.

The CSM team are applying the UNRMS including its CE principles to promote responsible raw materials supply. They concentrate on critical minerals and collaborate with colleagues across whole value chain, especially in the Exeter Business School, to take whole systems views of the circular economy. This includes the UKRI-funded Met4tech circular economy centre and CE-Hub in the NICER programme and a new Critical Minerals Accelerating the Green Economy Centre.

These projects contribute to a large Critical Minerals Centre led from CSM that carries out geological, minerals and mining research as well as transdisciplinary studies with business, ecology, social sciences, policy, and law.

The team are helping to implement the findings from a case study of the UNRMS in Cornwall, the first such case study published. Reports have been commissioned for two of the recommendations: a strategic environmental assessment and a report on how to add smelting to future tin mining in the region, funded by a Shared Prosperity Funded Geo-resources cluster project. The team will feedback lessons learned to the UNECE UNRMS sub-group.

We are writing up a scoping study of application of the UNRMS in Zambia alongside our CE studies there and are keen to collaborate on further UNRMS case studies.
We are bringing the results of the Met4Tech CE centre and CE-Hub to the wider UNECE audience.
We are also considering how the UNRMS and UNFC might be incorporated into university teaching.