Critical minerals are a key pillar of our economic growth and security. They drive digital innovation, underpin advanced manufacturing and power renewable energy technologies. Governments and businesses need to work together to meet growing demand for these minerals, while ensuring supply chains are reliable, resilient and responsible.
High levels of supply chain concentration and rising trade restrictions are limiting investment and creating real vulnerabilities in critical mineral supplies. While efforts to diversify sources are gathering pace, investment still falls short of what is needed to keep up with demand. In parallel, the operational and governance risks that come with mining and processing activities need to be managed more effectively; otherwise, they can delay projects, erode trust, and cause future disruptions.
Responsible business conduct standards, transparency and traceability are important tools to address these challenges. When applied in a targeted and pragmatic way, traceability can strengthen resilience, de‑risk investment, and support responsible sourcing. By improving visibility across supply chains, traceability helps identify dependencies, verify responsible practices and target interventions where risks persist. Traceability can also inform and strengthen economic security measures by providing verified information on origin, ownership and production conditions.
This report draws on a joint OECD-International Energy Agency survey of 90 companies covering all major critical minerals, producing and refining regions and supply chain segments. The survey was complemented with stakeholder interviews and field visits in Argentina, Chile, Indonesia and the Philippines.
It shows that the adoption of traceability systems is expanding across critical mineral supply chains with three-quarters of surveyed companies planning to scale up investments in the near-term to improve traceability. Realising its full potential, however, will require addressing persistent challenges including fragmented traceability systems, concerns over sharing commercially sensitive data and limited transparency over ownership structures that obscure who owns or controls key mineral assets.
By looking at lithium and nickel supply chains in Latin America and Southeast Asia, the report highlights the importance of a tailored approach. In Latin America's lithium sector, high refining concentration creates opportunities for targeted interventions, while in Southeast Asia's nickel sector, complex ownership structures make traceability more challenging, even as transparency initiatives gain traction.
The report provides a practical roadmap for policymakers to address these gaps. In the near term, it recommends making better use of existing tools, including trade data, supplier mapping and existing audit programmes. There is also scope to strengthen responsible business conduct and transparency standards in bilateral minerals agreements. In the medium-term, policy efforts should focus on closing data gaps by strengthening beneficial ownership transparency and improving mineral tracking. In the long term, international co-operation could focus on developing more integrated solutions, including through interoperable data platforms and digital product passports.
Ongoing international efforts, including the G7 Leaders’ Declaration on Securing Supply Chains for Critical Minerals, provide a strong foundation for advancing these policies and translating the recommendations of this report into concrete actions. The OECD will continue to support these efforts by providing the evidence, analysis and policy tools, and by fostering dialogue among governments, industry and other partners to strengthen transparency, build trust, and ultimately enhance the resilience of critical mineral supply chains.
Mathias Cormann,
OECD Secretary-General