Public Awareness

Social banner for SCRREEN online campaign, Superpowers of Critical Raw Materials

Communication campaign

In the bid to raise the awareness of new critical raw materials, the European SCRREEN project has launched a multilingual communication campaign today, 26 March 2018. This campaign is geared towards informing and educating the European public on the challenges linked to the 27 raw materials classified as ‘critical’ by the European Commission. Cars, wind turbines, solar panels and smartphones… ‘critical’ raw materials (CRMs) are used in all the technologies that are essential for the energy and digital transition.

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THE CAMPAIGN

Through 12 visuals, The Superpowers of New Critical Raw Materials campaign aims to make the general public aware of the different forms which critical raw materials take in our day-to-day life. CRMs are raw materials which have economic importance and are subject to possible scarcity.

To ensure the maximum reach of this campaign, each visual will be available in 5 languages, click on the slider to access the French, Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese versions.

Did you know?

Raw materials are essential elements in today’s industrial production and are crucial for the sustainable functioning of our economy.

A shortage of rare earth elements, used in everything from electric car batteries to solar panels and wind turbines, will hamper the growth of renewable energy technologies.
The increasing demand for raw materials has become a geopolitical issue as a great share of the worldwide production of CRMs is concentrated in a few countries, threatening to affect our economies if these countries cut back on exports.
Although Europe’s dependence on foreign imports of raw materials poses serious risks in terms of supply, price volatility and market distortions, many potential business opportunities have risen in recent years.
Waste recycling can allow for a more sustainable use of valuable raw materials and may be one of the solutions to the environmental impacts of mining and to Europe’s dependence on foreign resources.
Europe must find substitutes and develop innovative, clean and sustainable technologies for the exploration extraction and processing of raw materials.

Raw materials are crucial to Europe’s economy and essential to maintaining and improving our quality of life. Securing reliable and unhindered access to certain raw materials is a growing concern within the EU and across the globe. To address this challenge, the European Commission has created a list of Critical Raw Materials (CRMs). CRMs combine a high economic importance to the EU with a high risk associated with their supply. Examples of CRMs include rare earth elements, cobalt and niobium.

Learn more on the EC website