What We Believe

By 2050, the Earth will be home to more than 10 billion people.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), by 2060, humanity will consume at least twice as many resources (oil, coal, metals, sand and gravel, grains, fruits, and vegetables, etc.) than it did in 2011. The consumption of plastics is expected to triple by that time compared to 2019 levels.

Under this scenario, each person on the planet will consume an average of 45 kg of raw materials per day by 2060, compared to 33 kg today. This will amount to 167 billion tons globally, compared to 97 billion tons today.

Furthermore, given the global imperative to undertake an energy transition and move toward 100% electrification, minerals and metals are now more than ever essential and strategic resources.

Whether in industrial products, infrastructure, or consumer goods, metals are present in all aspects of daily life. Their consumption has accelerated unabated since the Industrial Revolution. In the last 20 years alone, lithium consumption surged by 500%, cobalt by 450%, and nickel by 180%.

This trend is set to intensify in the coming years, as supporting the shift in our energy model increases the demand for metals. According to the International Energy Agency, "a concerted effort to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement would mean a quadrupling of mineral requirements for clean energy technologies by 2040. An even faster transition, to reach net zero globally by 2050, would require six times more mineral inputs in 2040 than today."

Meeting its needs will require humanity to extract more resources from the earth over the next 30 years than what it has extracted in the past 70,000 years.

The European Union, which extracts only 3% of the world’s metal volume, consumes nearly 20%. As a net importer of metals and minerals, the continent finds itself in a situation of growing dependency and vulnerability, particularly in relation to China. Indeed, China supplies 100% of the EU’s heavy rare earths. The significance of other countries is also noteworthy: Turkey (98% of the EU’s boron supply), Chile (28% of global copper production), and South Africa (71% of the EU’s platinum supply).

Aware of this dependency, the European Commission introduced a regulation on critical raw materials (Critical Raw Materials Act — CRMA) in March 2023, under the leadership of Thierry Breton. This plan, designed to secure Europe's supply of critical metals, came into effect in May 2024 and sets goals for diversifying supply sources, relocating production, and expanding the refining and recycling of these strategic resources. It is now up to French and European industries to implement these measures and manage the risks affecting their supply chains.

The companies that will exist and succeed in the future are those that integrate an efficient "metal strategy" at the heart of their business model today. The risks associated with supply chains for critical and strategic metals require moving beyond short-term procurement management, stepping away from the "business as usual" approach to sourcing raw materials and goods containing metals, and developing a strategic vision aimed at increasing resilience, adaptability, and a forward-looking perspective within their value chain.

Act today to secure supply chains and manage associated risks.

Guillaume Pitron and Laurence Rimbeuf, through Psyché 16, work with major corporations and French SMEs to map their supply chains, assess their level of exposure to risks, manage knowledge relating to suppliers (from Tier 1 to Tier 6), develop effective sourcing strategies and resource optimization strategies (substitution, recycling, low-tech, ethics by design, industrial efficiency), deploy an efficient and adapted procurement strategy, and integrate predictive data and business intelligence tools to anticipate medium- and long-term risks.

Our goal: to ensure the continuity and resilience of metal supply chains and, ultimately, the sustainability and profitability of French industrial companies.