Norms and standards

The majority of the raw materials and products value chain is regulated by laws and supported by standards. Whilst supranational (e.g. EU) and national law are mandatory, the use of standards is voluntary, unless a piece of law explicitly refers to the given standard, e.g. the Landfill Directive refers to ASTM A36 carbon steel containers and the ISO 5667 standard on sampling techniques. Legislation can’t regulate all the technical, socio-economic and environmental details, therefore the importance of standards is increasing. Other voluntary instruments, such as international initiatives and certifications schemes also act in direction of harmonization and sustainable production.

Standards are widely accepted technical specifications to ensure that materials, products, processes and services are fitted for their purpose. They play a major role in adoption of new technologies, and the compatibility and interoperability of products and production processes. A standard is a technical document designed to be used as a rule, guideline or definition. Standards are created by interested parties of a particular material, product, process or service. A standard is established by consensus and approved by a recognized body that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context. All stakeholders benefit from standardization through increased product safety and quality as well as lower transaction and environmental costs.

Standards are issued by international (e.g. ISO, CEN, CENELEC), national (e.g. DIN, ASTM) or sectoral entities (e.g. JORC, API). Open standards are freely accessible but most standards must be purchased for use. A good example how the usufruct of scientific research may turn into a standard, a recommendation and eventually to legislation is the LCA and PEF methodologies developed by the JRC EPLCA. A similar success story is the transposition of the OECD due diligence guidance for responsible supply chains into the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation.

Regulation 1025/2012/EU on European standardisation is the major piece of legislation that governs the EU scene of standards. The European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation (CENELEC) issue European Standards (EN) implemented by national member entities in 34 countries.

The European IPPC Bureau manages information exchange between the European Commission, EU Member States, industry and environmental non-governmental organisations on best available techniques (BAT) to control industrial pollution, as mandated by the Industrial Emissions Directive (2010/75/EU) (originally the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive (96/61/EC). Numerous BAT reference documents (BREFs) deal with the downstream processing, manufacturing, and waste, the preparations for a BREF on extraction of ores started in 2024.

Since mining is governed by national jurisdiction with diverse solutions, therefore initiatives by international entities (e.g. OECD, World Bank), industry associations (e.g. EITI, Global Battery Alliance) or companies and their projects (DMT, CERA4in1) play a crucial role in the safe and sustainable supply of raw materials for the downstream of the value chain. Countries may also introduce such initiatives, such as Spain for sustainable mining.

Patents overlaps with standards but with a narrower focus on technology, the protection of intellectual property rights and related business interest (ie. royalty). Many standards are built on a set of patents which may make the use of the standard difficult if the patent owner asks for unreasonably high royalty. An invention to qualify for patent protection must be novel, have an inventive step and be industrially applicable. The EU patents are registered by the European Patent Office. Indicator 19 of the EU Raw Materials Scoreboard is to monitor the competitiveness and innovation of the sector by the relevant patent applications. The number of patents in the whole raw material value chain on global scale is in the order of ten thousand.

Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) are patents incorporated in a standard. A SEP’s use is indispensable to companies manufacturing complex technology products that comply with a standard. The success of a standard depends on its wide implementation and every producer should be allowed to use it. However, the patent owner has the right to limit or prevent the usage of that technology and profit from it by choosing to whom to license/sell the patents. To deal with this contradiction, standards development organisations demand the patent owners to license their patented technology on “fair reasonable and non-discriminatory” (FRAND) terms.

The distinction between certification (and accreditation) schemes, and licensing (permitting) procedures is that the latter is regulated in legislation and managed by government authorities. Certification and accreditation is to demonstrate that a company or an individual or their procedure meet a rigorous set of standards. Certificates are issued by independent professional organizations, e.g. eurogeologist title by EFG, or numerous technical certificates by TÜV. However, some initiatives don’t involve a formal audit and certificate, a voluntary commitment is sufficient to be a party to the scheme, similar to international conventions. The EU certificate for products is the CE mark with a strong legal background, see Table below. The Declaration of Conformity is a legal document which must accompany all CE Marked products sold in the European Union.

Another legal term strongly related to the protection of natural persons’ and/or companies’ interest and rights is the intellectual property rights (IPR) which includes copyrights, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights and trade secrets. Most of these are out of the scope of the RMIS.

In the non-energy raw materials value chain standards are important as reflected in the Critical Raw Materials Act with sound provisions on the mandatory use of existing standards and the elaboration of numerous new ones (Preamble (17), (63), Articles 30, 31, 34, 44, Annexes III, IV). Annex III on the recognition of strategic projects lists eight UN and OECD standards as compliance criteria, as well, Annex V indicates the ISO 14040:2006 standard in the context of LCA and PEF. Annex IV of the Act is on the recognition of certification schemes which shall also be based on international, Union or national standards in the field.

Since the number of relevant EU standards and international standards is in the order of hundreds and thousands, respectively, an ad hoc selection of standards and certification schemes, and relevant technical committees is listed hereby: