Critical materials for renewable energy: Improving data governance

With increasing global demand for critical materials, the call for greater transparency in global supply chains and markets – including data availability – has been growing. The global transition to renewable energy relies on a rapidly expanding and uninterrupted supply of these critical materials for manufacturing renewable energy technologies, energy storage systems and electric vehicles (EVs). Establishing a more unified, open and transparent data repository for critical materials supply chains could support more effective governance. Without such a repository, decision-makers may be less informed about critical materials markets, potentially slowing the supply of materials to international markets and hindering the deployment of renewable energy.

This report highlights the importance of unified data repositories to enhance governance and decision-making in critical materials markets, emphasising how data opacity can impede renewable energy deployment. It examines major existing data sources on critical materials and reviews the key actors involved in their governance, including national government institutions, international organisations and foundations, mineral associations and commercial data providers.

The report reviews initiatives aimed at improving data availability in other sectors, using them as potential models for critical materials data management. Drawing on lessons from these initiatives, it highlights the principles and content of such a database, as well as the benefits of establishing a unified data repository for critical materials to enhance data transparency, access, and quality in critical materials markets.