Materials Impact Report: All Industries Edition, Q1 2025

Indigenous Rights and Trade Barrier Navigation Transform Materials Sector Land Management

This cross-sectoral analysis reveals how materials companies face dual challenges from SDG7's call for clean energy investment and SDG11.4's focus on protecting heritage sites in extraction areas, creating complex trade-offs that require sophisticated governance approaches and stakeholder engagement strategies. The research examines how these competing priorities manifest as both operational challenges and strategic considerations, requiring robust materiality assessment processes that consider both financial materiality, through project development timelines, and impact materiality, through community relationships, across diverse extraction contexts.

The report additionally highlights how recent tariff volatility has disrupted community engagement initiatives for 54% of materials companies particularly affecting collaborative heritage protection and renewable energy investments.

Call to Action: Materials companies should develop regionally balanced operations and implement flexible community engagement strategies that can adapt to trade policy fluctuations ensuring both indigenous rights and clean energy commitments remain prioritised despite economic uncertainties.

The report highlights that 58% of Australia's critical mineral projects are on Indigenous lands, with 79% when including pending claims, requiring robust co-management strategies with local communities to protect cultural heritage. This geographical reality creates significant implications for project development timelines, stakeholder engagement approaches and regulatory compliance throughout materials operations, particularly as governance frameworks for Indigenous rights continue to evolve across jurisdictions.

This analysis examines how leading companies are implementing innovative approaches to balance extraction activities with cultural heritage preservation. Notably, Rio Tinto incorporates cultural heritage surveys into project development, while Vale transforms former mining sites into conservation areas that protect endangered species. These initiatives demonstrate growing industry recognition of double materiality considerations that extend beyond immediate operational boundaries to encompass broader societal and ecological impacts throughout materials value chains.

The report examines how materials companies are increasingly adopting circular economy principles to reduce primary extraction requirements and associated environmental and social impacts. Companies implementing comprehensive approaches to material recovery, reprocessing and reuse are demonstrating enhanced resource efficiency while potentially reducing conflicts related to new extraction sites, creating both environmental benefits and strategic advantages in increasingly resource-constrained contexts.

Looking toward future regulatory landscapes, the report identifies significant developments reshaping compliance requirements across materials subsectors, including the EU's Critical Raw Materials Act, which aims to secure sustainable supplies of materials essential for the green and digital transitions. As these frameworks intensify disclosure requirements around sourcing practices, environmental impacts and community engagement, companies implementing comprehensive governance approaches are demonstrating enhanced preparedness for CSRD reporting obligations and other emerging policy frameworks.