Speech by Malcolm Johnson, ITU Deputy Secretary-General

Side Event on "Energy Transitions and Strategic Metals"  : Speech

07 December 2015, Paris, France

Distinguished Colleagues,

It is a great pleasure for me to participate in this side-event on "Energy Transitions and Strategic metals.   

I would like to thank the organisers for inviting ITU: the Ministère de l'Économie, de l'Industrie et du Numérique and the Comité pour les métaux stratégiques (COMES), in particular its Secretary-General Alain Liger, and Philippe Tuzzolino of Orange the Chairman of its Industry Needs Committee.  

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are now in all walks of life, essential for businesses and vital for our social and economic needs. When we look at the latest generation of smartphones and computers, we see beautifully crafted products with immense capabilities offering huge opportunities.

As of 2015, there are now more than 7 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide, a substantial increase from the 738 million in 2000. Globally, 3.2 billion people are using the Internet, of which two billion live in developing countries. ICTs exhibit immense potential to mitigate and adapt to climate change and offer a future of global smart sustainable cities. Indeed it is only through the application of ICTs that the reduction in greenhouse gasses that the climate experts say is necessary can be achieved.

However, the increasing demand for ICTs brings is own environmental concerns, and in particular recently there has been much more emphasis on the need for the recycling of strategic or rare metals in mobile phones, PCs and other ICT goods. Rare metals are the "vitamins of the industry" and their importance is very well recognised.

ICT industries are dependent on certain rare metals. For example Indium, which forms an integral part of the popular touch screen applications as it has high conductivity and is transparent.

As such, rare metals are essential to obtain high performance and high functionality of ICT goods, including printers, mobiles, PCs and servers. The most common rare metals used in ICT goods include Gold, Indium and Gallium. While these metals are quite rare in the earth crust and are difficult to extract, the demand is greatly increasing, causing the rare metals market to more than double worldwide since 2000.

Rare metals use is not only in existing ICT goods but also future technologies, especially as we will hear later for renewable energy goods such as photovoltaic panels.

For the continued growth of the ICT industry, it is important therefore to consider not only a stable supply of rare metals but also their associated environmental impact. It is well known that some rare metals such as Indium and Gallium may be depleted in the future, putting a severe strain on the industry in absence of efficient recycling processes.

So how will the insatiable demand for this technology be met despite the depletion of rare metal sources? Will it be possible to make more efficient use and reuse of them?

The reducing supply and the increasing demand has led many countries to prepare policies to ensure a stable supply of rare metals such as: overseas resource development; alternative material development; export control policies; using rare metals only for emergencies; and in particular recycling.

Recycling has great potential. One tonne of gold ore yields around just 5 mg of gold, whereas one tonne of used mobile phones yields a staggering 400 mg.

Over tens of millions of ICT goods are annually withdrawn from the market as e-waste, much of which is dumped in developing countries. It was recently estimated that 42 million tonnes of e-waste was produced in 2014, with a potential value of €48 billion due to the presence of materials such as copper, gold, iron, aluminum, silver and palladium.  Recycling rare metals from this e-waste would offer huge opportunities however very often refuse recycling companies are reluctant to acknowledge the business opportunity, lack the capability or fail to have sufficient incentive.

Recycling could "close the loop" on e-waste by reintroducing into the supply chain precious and rare metals recycled from the unwanted ICT equipment. This would give manufacturers a clean supply chain as well as reducing the demand on these limited natural resources, in a manner which is auditable, measurable and traceable. It could also reduce the production cost of new products and increase their attractiveness to customers by offering a product that is verifiably conflict-free.

It would "kill two birds with one stone"- not only help solve the global e-waste problem, but also satisfy the increasing demand for rare metals.

To do so will require affirmative action.

ITU, as the United Nations agency for ICTs and an international standards development organization can help. ITU has the benefit of a large private sector membership of over 700 companies, originally telecom operators and vendors but also now IT companies, and increasingly companies from other industry sectors that are becoming reliant on ICTs.

Through ITU's Study Group "Environment and Climate Change" in which many ICT companies are active and which is chaired by Mr Ahmed Zeddam of Orange, which is one of the leaders of this work, ITU has developed a series of standards for the recovery of rare metals and how to tackle e-waste.

For example, Recommendation ITU-T L.1101 describes "Measurement methods to characterize rare metals in information and communication technology goods" and Recommendation ITU-T L.1100 on "Procedure for recycling rare metals in information and communication technology goods" details information on economically and energy efficient recycling procedures for extracting rare metals from discarded ICT goods. These and all ITU standards can be downloaded free of change form the ITU website.

The recycling methods illustrated in these standards not only stress the reuse of the rare metals but also its collection, separation and extraction.  To do so will require sustained coordination between the manufacturers and the recyclers.

In fact as with many challenges, coordination amongst all the various interested stakeholders is essential, and as the lead UN agency is this field ITU is keen to provide the platform for this to happen. So I hope this side-event presents an opportunity for discuss the challenges related to strategic metals and encourage greater coordination. We need to review where gaps exist and use our collective intelligence and creativity to bridge these divides. I therefore invite you to join with us and exert your maximum efforts to realize the viability of a more technological sustainable future.

Thank You