Mining and the Circular Economy Program

About the Mining and Circular Economy (MCE) Program

The Mining and the Circular Economy (MCE) Program investigates how to responsibly manage the Earth’s mineral resources to meet global needs while promoting the social and environmental well-being of extractive regions and future generations.

Countries across the globe are working to mitigate and adapt to the social and environmental impacts of climate change through infrastructural development that depends on the production of natural resources like copper, lithium, cobalt, iron, and nickel. Yet mining these metals also causes social and environmental impacts in extractive areas, which are often on or nearby Indigenous lands. The MCE Program grapples with these contradictions through rigorous research and public outreach with stakeholders, such as community organizations, mining companies, governments, intergovernmental organizations, and NGOs. 

The MCE Program efforts are oriented around three main branches of environmental solutions: 

1. Produce the metals needed for the clean energy transition;
2. Reduce the environmental and social harms of mining;
3. Advance the circular economy and other natural resource solutions.   

Conferences

The inaugural MIT Conference on Mining, Environment, and Society took place on Sept. 7-9, 2022 and convened academics, industry, government officials and NGOs to discuss the environmental and social challenges of supplying the materials for solar, batteries, the electric grid and more, and to identify opportunities for future collaboration.

The MIT Global Summit on Mine Tailings Innovation took place on the MIT campus and virtually from September 19-20, 2024. You can view the presentation slides and video recordings from the conference.

Professional Education

MCE works with MIT Professional Education to offer training in sustainability thought and practice to mining professionals. This work began with a program in Brazil called the Mining Innovation in a New Environment (MINE) program, carried out in cooperation with Vale, The Bakery, SENAI CLIMATEC, and the Imperial College London Consultants. The program has trained approximately 60 Brazilian professionals, and has included lectures by MIT faculty and tutoring on how to incorporate considerations of sustainability into operational challenges.

Recent Publications

MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI) Hosts Global Conference on Mine Waste (MIT ESI, Nov. 22, 2024)

Governing Critical Mineral Mining and the Clean Energy Transition (MIT ESI, Oct. 21, 2024)

Mine ownership and community relations: Comparing hydrosocial dynamics of public and private companies in Chile (ScienceDirect, Feb. 21, 2023)

Contact

Scott Odell, Program Scientist (sodell@mit.edu)