BACKGROUND INFORMATION: 

Minerals and metals are essential to economic development, infrastructure expansion, and the global clean energy transition. Since 2019, the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) has progressively advanced international efforts to improve the environmental sustainability of the minerals and metals sector.

In December 2025, UNEA adopted Resolution 7/3 on Strengthening International Cooperation on the Environmentally Sound Management of Minerals and Metals. Under this resolution, UNEA asked the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to compile submissions and convene dialogues among Member States and relevant stakeholders on international cooperation, resource recovery from mining waste and tailings, best practices, and the technological, financial, and scientific capabilities related to the environmental dimensions of minerals and metals.

EVENT SPECIFIC INFORMATION: 

As part of implementing UNEA Resolution 7/3, UNEP is convening a hybrid event titled "From Resolution to Action: Advancing Material Efficiency and Circularity Across Mineral and Metal Value Chains".

This event is the second dialogue under UNEA Resolution 7/3, bringing together Member States, stakeholders, rights holders, and partners to discuss and identify priorities, good practices, and opportunities to strengthen international cooperation to advance material efficiency and circularity across mineral and metal value chains.

OBJECTIVES OF THE EVENT:

  • Deepen a shared understanding of material efficiency and circularity across the full mineral and metal value chains, from extraction and processing to product design, use, reuse, remanufacturing, recycling and resource recovery; 
  • Review the initial findings on business cases for material efficiency and circularity across mineral and metal value chains and identify priorities and opportunities to support wider uptake; 
  • Exchange country and stakeholder experience on policies, business cases, technologies and practices that are already delivering environmental, economic and social benefits; 
  • Build on the discussions of the first dialogue on environmental law and governance, and discuss specific challenges and opportunities to achieve material efficiency and circularity for responsible minerals and metals value chains through policy and regulations; 
  • Identify barriers to implementation and scale-up, including gaps in data and metrics, infrastructure, technology, finance, markets, policy coherence, skills and institutional capacity; 
  • Examine how circularity can support value addition, economic diversification, decent work and benefit sharing in developing and mineral-producing countries, while avoiding burden shifting; and 
  • Identify priorities for international cooperation and practical inputs for subsequent dialogues under UNEA resolution 7/3, including relevant synergies with the UN Task Force on Critical Energy Transition Minerals.

 

MEETING CONNECTION LINK: Click here to join the meeting.

Meeting documents