Raw Materials

The European International Centre of Excellence on Sustainable Resource Management (EU ICE SRM) will be a capacity building and knowledge centre supporting the United Nations Classification Framework (UNFC) and United Nations Resource Management System (UNRMS), which will aim to fulfil the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDG) by integrating information on the availability of natural resources and building strong EU-level expertise on Critical Raw Materials (CRM) intelligence.

The EU ICE SRM will operate as a network of partners and experts with headquarters that facilitate and support the network and its activities, such as promotion and capacity building, including related methodological and technical activities, and relevant databases.

The main objectives of the EU ICE SRM are:

• Establishing a common understanding of practical UNFC reporting of historic information and a system of continuous updating when new information become available
• Expanding the usage of UNFC concepts from mineral raw materials to other domains such as energy (geothermal, solar, wind), water, extractive industry residues such as tailings, stockpiles, and waste rocks
• Identification and inclusion of key actors to build a strong, reliable network
• Developing and maintaining a European Network for UNFC experts on mineral resources of all commodities (e.g., metals, industrial minerals, construction raw materials) in terrestrial and marine environments from primary and secondary sources
• Identifying and managing a network of experts for capacity building and expertise
• Building a network of experts to support EC expertise in the field of resource management
• Educating and training practitioners and stakeholders according to the UNFC model, specifically the collection, usage, and visualisation of data
• Identifying and managing a network of partners to supply relevant data
• Providing support to UNFC and UNRMS related data and information on technical (information technology) at expert level
• Identifying why data gaps in the geographical coverage of Europe exist, and seeking to overcome those that lay within the responsibility of GSEU project partners
• Capacity building and promotion to minimise gaps in the geographical coverage of Europe
• Extending activities to countries neighbouring the EU