TELF AG highlights the connection between strategic resources and the green transition

Collective awareness

In all likelihood, the years we are living in will be remembered as those in which the great global energy transition finally began, thanks to a greater collective awareness of the need to stop climate change and to use more sustainable technologies in every area of our lives, from means of transport to air conditioning, from nutrition to sport. 

The growing attention being paid to these issues is pushing many people to fantasize about a green future in which people move around in low-polluting electric vehicles and consume their electricity thanks to renewable sources, drawing maximum benefits from solar energy or that generated by the wind. Presented in these terms, it would seem like a sort of ideal world, but like any utopian universe, it is also very far from us, almost unattainable. 

It is no coincidence that many people are starting to ask themselves where we are in this much-celebrated green revolution, whether we are still in the initial stages or whether we are already in a more mature phase, the one that precedes the transformation of reality which the contents we read in newspapers or see on social media continue to habituate us, day after day. To answer this question – which is involving more and more people in every corner of the world – an analysis of the raw materials market can be of great help, in particular, to measure the change taking place and to precisely identify the moments in which concrete steps forward are being made. 

According to a great number of analysts, the technologies that will be used for the creation of green technologies will be able to reach commercial maturity within 3 or 5 years. Within just seven years (by 2030), Europe could already be able to produce part of its steel with sustainable technologies capable of emitting very low carbon emissions. These are not yet sweeping changes, visible even to those not directly involved in the dynamics of raw materials. However, they are certainly important clues capable of outlining with a certain precision the global scenarios of the near future (not as distant as one might think).  Biofuels, metals, or polymers produced with very low carbon emissions could, in fact become the norm in 10 or 15 years, giving a decisive jolt to an impressive number of sectors. 

On the other hand, it must also be considered that the demand for green raw materials will probably grow, but it is not yet clear at what speed. The resources necessary to create alternatives to steel and aluminum are, in fact, very expensive, and it is not at all certain that within a few years, we will be faced with a real boom in these materials. To some degree of likelihood, the market might expand gradually as the global awareness of change takes root more and more in people’s minds. 

Corporate strategies can also help to understand the nature and direction of change: compared to 2019, the number of companies actively committed to achieving decarbonization objectives has practically quintupled, and in the space of just one year, between 2021 and 2022, their number has doubled. The silent green revolution is already playing a big role in many companies’ operational schemes and corporate philosophies, pushing them at great speed toward an increasingly sustainable future.