The secure and sustainable supply of raw materials is fundamental to the energy and digital transitions, while increasing demand for critical and strategic raw materials creates new environmental, technological, economic and societal challenges. Addressing these challenges requires integrated approaches covering the entire mineral-resource life cycle, from exploration and resource evaluation to extraction, processing, responsible consumption, circularity, mine closure and post-mining land use.

This session invites contributions presenting innovative approaches for responsible consumption and production in the raw materials and mining sector, with particular emphasis on methods and technologies that improve resource efficiency, reduce environmental impacts and uncertainties, and support resilient and responsible mineral value chains.

We particularly welcome contributions addressing:

Sustainable exploration, resource evaluation and uncertainty-aware mineral-resource modelling;
Responsible surface and underground extraction and mine planning;
Critical and strategic raw materials from primary and secondary resources;
Critical and strategic raw materials from primary and secondary sources, including recovery and valorisation from urban wastes, mine wastes, tailings and slags;
Digital mining, remote sensing, GIS, geostatistics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, automation, robotics and digital twins;
Environmental impacts of extraction and processing (water, energy, emissions, waste, ecosystems) and their assessment through life-cycle and sustainability-performance approaches;
Responsible sourcing, traceability, supply-chain resilience and raw-material criticality;
Mine-waste management, rehabilitation, mine closure, post-mining monitoring and sustainable post-mining land uses;
Risk, uncertainty and safety assessment throughout the mining life cycle;
Innovative governance, ESG, regulatory and decision-support approaches for sustainable raw-material development.

The session seeks to bring together researchers, practitioners, industry representatives and early-career scientists working across related topics.

We especially encourage interdisciplinary contributions that demonstrate how geoscientific knowledge, advanced technologies and circular-economy principles can be integrated to reconcile raw-material security with environmental protection and responsible production and consumption.