Tracking the Trends 2023

The energy transition will be a mineral-intensive one: mineral demand from electric vehicles and battery storage alone is estimated to grow tenfold by 2040. Yet, at the same time, approvals for projects that could become important providers of critical minerals are facing strong public resistance. It is a serious disconnect that could quite possibly threaten global climate change mitigation. 

Understanding and progressing the pivotal role mining and metals play in economies around the world as well as in global decarbonization is at the core of the top 10 trends featured in Deloitte Global’s Tracking the Trends 2023. Now in its 15th Edition, this year’s report explores those trends facing mining and metals companies in the year ahead, including:  

• Generating strategic advantage through natural capital: Mining and metals companies are beginning to detail their impacts on nature across operations and value chains to enable an accurate valuation of natural capital. 
• The role of mining in a circular economy: A circular economy model decouples mining and metals companies from finite materials, yielding a more sustainable use of resources and an opportunity to capitalize on untapped value. 
• Future-proofing mining and metal supply chains: Mining and metals companies are taking a fresh look at fortifying their supply chains in order to safeguard raw material supplies that support other important industries.  
• Supporting the decarbonization of economies: With value chain decarbonization one of miners and metal producers’ biggest challenges, many are forming partnerships to accelerate breakthrough cleantech in downstream companies. 

The top 10 trends 

1. Valuing nature: generating a strategic advantage through natural capital
2. Conscious circularity: the role of mining in a circular economy
3. Driving down embodied carbon in metals: supporting the decarbonization of economies
4. Collaborate, incubate, accelerate: speeding successful innovation for greater value
5. Building resilient supply chains: securing future metals and minerals supplies
6. Making change more holistic: using systems thinking to drive next-level operational excellence
7. Rethinking external talent pathways: solving complex workforce challenges through collaborative solutioning
8. Layering safety for greater sustainability: making workforce health and safety fit for the future
9. Transparency equals trust: using tax and economic contribution reporting to change perceptions of mining
10. The power of cloud: building an industry that thrives through change 

With mining underpinning around half of the global economy, mining and metals companies have the strong potential to not only effect positive change within their own industry but throughout value chains and the world.