Assessing ESG and economic challenges for cobalt supply from new mining projects in Europe

Despite abundant cobalt resources in Europe, only Finland and Turkey currently extract the metal. This study examines challenges to new cobalt supply by comparing seven exploration projects and two operating mines in Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Turkey. A multicriteria analysis framework was developed to assess four domains: environmental (E), social (S), political and legal (G), and economic (EC), each with five to six indicators. Results highlight complex interactions between indicators on national and local scales. While Nordic countries have strong mineral governance and thus rank highly in the political and legal domain, challenges persist, amplified by low rankings in land use and territorial aspects for some projects, particularly Sakatti, due to its vicinity to protected areas, reindeer herding and indigenous people. Furthermore, economic conflicts of interest with tourism result in low rankings for Kuusamo in two social indicators. The arctic region is also particularly vulnerable to climate change, exacerbated by anthropogenic activity. Turkey’s Çaldağ project ranks highest for cobalt recovery, but it ranks low in all but one environmental indicator, due to high energy consumption and weak environmental governance in Turkey. Many mining conflicts could be mitigated by earlier community engagement to gain a social license to operate.