2017
Novel indicators for the quantification of resilience in critical material supply chains
Publication
Publication
Environmental Science and Technology , Volume 51 - Issue 7 p. 3860- 3870
We introduce several new resilience metrics for quantifying the resilience of critical material supply chains to disruptions and validate these metrics using the 2010 rare earth element (REE) crisis as a case study. Our method is a novel application of Event Sequence Analysis, supplemented with interviews of actors across the entire supply chain. We discuss resilience mechanisms in quantitative terms−time lags, response speeds, and maximum magnitudes−and in light of cultural differences between Japanese and European corporate practice. This quantification is crucial if resilience is ever to be taken into account in criticality assessments and a step toward determining supply and demand elasticities in the REE supply chain. We find that the REE system showed resilience mainly through substitution and increased non-Chinese primary production, with a distinct role for stockpiling. Overall, annual substitution rates reached 10% of total demand. Non-Chinese primary production ramped up at a speed of 4% of total market volume per year. The compound effect of these mechanisms was that recovery from the 2010 disruption took two years. The supply disruption did not nudge a system toward an appreciable degree of recycling. This finding has important implications for the circular economy concept, indicating that quite a long period of sustained material constraints will be necessary for a production-consumption system to naturally evolve toward a circular configuration.
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doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.6b05751, hdl.handle.net/1765/123092 | |
Environmental Science and Technology | |
Organisation | Department of Public Administration and Sociology (DPAS) |
Sprecher, B., Daigo, I., Spekkink, W., Vos, M., Kleijn, R., Murakami, S., & Kramer, G.J. (2017). Novel indicators for the quantification of resilience in critical material supply chains. Environmental Science and Technology, 51(7), 3860–3870. doi:10.1021/acs.est.6b05751 |