# Criticality and geopolitics: How the lists are built: EU, US, India and Graedel

Source page: https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/p2/

[Understanding Commodities](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/) / [Module 8: Criticality and geopolitics](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/) Part 2 of 5

## How the lists are built: EU, US, India and Graedel

Governments turn the idea into lists by scoring materials. The EU combines a supply risk score with an economic importance score and applies two thresholds. The US estimates what a disruption would cost its economy. Academics add environmental harm. Knowing the machinery tells you why a material moves on or off a list, and whether a move reflects the world or the method.

### 2.1 The EU scores supply risk and economic importance and lists what clears both bars

The EU has assessed criticality every three years since 2011. A material is critical if its supply risk (SR) is at least 1.0 and its economic importance (EI) at least 2.8, both rounded to one decimal. There is no ranking within the list.

Economic importance starts from uses. Each application is assigned to a manufacturing sector and weighted by that sector's value added. The total is divided by the value added of the largest sector, machinery and equipment (about €204 billion), multiplied by 10 to give a 0-10 scale, and multiplied by a substitution index, SI(EI), which falls below 1 only for substitutes that are proven and available today.

Supply risk starts from concentration. Each producing country's share of supply is squared and multiplied by a governance score, the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators rescaled from 0 (good) to 10 (poor), and by a trade parameter, t, above 1 where the country restricts exports and below 1 for EU members. Summing gives a governance-weighted Herfindahl index. It is computed for world supply and for the countries that actually supply the EU, and the two are blended by import reliance (IR): net imports divided by domestic production plus net imports. At 100% IR they count equally; at zero only EU sourcing counts. The result is multiplied by one minus the end-of-life recycling input rate, since recycled old scrap is treated as riskless, and by a second substitution index, SI(SR).

Since 2020 the EU has scored extraction and processing separately where data allow, 40 materials in 2023, and uses the riskier stage, the bottleneck. The 2023 study used 2016-2020 averages and calls itself a screening exercise, weakest on data for uses, substitutes and recycling.
 Worked example

#### Rebuilding cobalt's 2023 scores

At the extraction stage the EU used world supply only, because trade data were confidential. Congo (Kinshasa) mined 62.8%, with a governance score of 8.22 and a trade parameter of 1.1: 0.628 squared x 8.22 x 1.1 is about 3.57. Other producers add about 0.06, giving 3.63. Multiply by (1 - 0.22) for the recycling input rate and by SI(SR) of 0.98: 2.8, the published score. For EI, 57% of uses are in fabricated metal products (€164 billion value added), 36% in chemicals (€132 billion) and 3% in batteries (€89 billion). Divided by machinery's €204 billion, that is 0.70; times 10 and times SI(EI) of 0.97, it gives the published 6.8.

- European Commission (2023), Study on the Critical Raw Materials for the EU 2023 [web ↗](https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/critical-raw-materials_en) · pdf pp. 5-6, 19-22, 34, 43, 47-48, 51, 55, 67-70, 85, 119, 121-122

### 2.2 The 2023 EU list has 34 materials, a strategic subset, and some moves that are purely methodological

Of 70 candidates, covering 87 individual materials, 34 made the 2023 list. The first list, in 2011, had 14; the 2020 list had 30. New entries were arsenic, feldspar, helium and manganese, plus copper and nickel. Indium and natural rubber dropped out. None of the newly screened neon, krypton, xenon or roundwood qualified.

Copper and nickel are on the list without clearing the thresholds: copper's supply risk is 0.1 and nickel's 0.5. They are strategic raw materials, a category in the Critical Raw Materials Act, proposed with the 2023 list and adopted in 2024, for materials vital to green, digital, defence and aerospace technologies, which the regulation adds to the critical list automatically. Manganese and titanium metal are strategic too. The case for copper is volume and difficulty: about 20 Mt used in 2020, hard to substitute in electrical uses and slow to recycle because it stays in products for decades. For nickel the study warns that its score ignores who owns projects and capacity, and private contracts, which may matter more than the country mix.

The reasons for each move repay reading. Gallium's supply risk jumped from 1.3 to 3.9 because China's share rose and Germany stopped primary production in 2016. Manganese crossed the line when Bulgaria and Hungary stopped producing and imports concentrated on South Africa (41%) and Gabon (39%). Natural rubber fell below it because its recycling input rate was revised from 1% to 5% and its substitution index from 0.99 to 0.90, although the EU imports all of it; the study concedes the method cannot see a producers' cartel. Tungsten's risk fell from 1.6 to 1.2 because China lifted its export quotas in 2015.
 Common misreading

#### A falling score is not always a safer world

Germanium's EU supply risk fell from 3.9 in 2020 to 1.8 in 2023, yet the study says world supply is still highly concentrated in China. The fall came from calculating with EU sourcing data as well as world supply, as in 2017. In 2023 China put germanium under export licensing, and in December 2024 it banned exports to the United States, after which US imports of the metal fell 67% in 2025. Read every score with its footnote.

- European Commission (2023), Study on the Critical Raw Materials for the EU 2023 [web ↗](https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/critical-raw-materials_en) · pdf pp. 5-8, 36-43, 65
- USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, Germanium [web ↗](https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/mcs2026) · pdf pp. 92-93
- USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, Gallium [web ↗](https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/mcs2026) · pdf p. 86

### 2.3 The US list estimates what a disruption would cost the economy; India's reflects a fast-growing importer

The US list is set by the USGS under the Energy Act of 2020 and updated at least every three years. The 2018 list had 35 minerals, the 2022 list 50, and the final 2025 list, published on 7 November 2025, has 60. For 2025 the USGS modelled more than 1,200 scenarios of a year-long foreign trade disruption across 84 mineral commodities. Each scenario's effect on US GDP came from supply and demand elasticities, spare capacity and input-output tables, and was weighted by its probability. A mineral qualifies if its probability-weighted annual GDP loss exceeds US$2 million, or if its US supply chain rests on a single domestic producer.

That framing explains the 2025 changes. The draft added copper, lead, potash, rhenium, silicon and silver, not unusually concentrated but used across large values of US output, and proposed dropping arsenic and tellurium. The final list restored those two and added boron, metallurgical coal, phosphate rock and uranium under the Interior Secretary's authority. A list is a technical result and a political decision.

Dependence is deep: of the 58 listed minerals other than metallurgical coal and uranium, the US was 100% net import reliant for 13 in 2025 and over 50% for another 20.

India published a list of 30 in 2023, and in January 2025 approved a National Critical Mineral Mission: ₹34,300 crore over seven years, ₹16,300 crore of it from the government, for exploration, overseas assets, processing parks, recycling and a stockpile. Lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, rare earths, gallium and germanium are on all three lists. Potash is critical for India and the US but not the EU, which scores its supply risk at 0.7. Indium and tellurium are on the US and Indian lists but not the EU's; magnesium and aluminium are on the EU and US lists but not India's. Iron ore is on none: its EU economic importance is 7.2 but its supply risk only 0.5. The disagreements reflect different import positions and weights, not errors. Each mineral tile's criticality lens shows all three flags.

- USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, U.S. Critical Minerals Update [web ↗](https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/mcs2026) · pdf pp. 12, 28-30
- [USGS (2025), Methodology and technical input for the 2025 U.S. List of Critical Minerals, Open-File Report 2025-1047](https://www.usgs.gov/publications/methodology-and-technical-input-2025-us-list-critical-minerals-assessing-potential) · web
- Radetzki & Wårell (2021), A Handbook of Primary Commodities · pdf p. 211
- Ministry of Mines, Government of India (2023), Critical Minerals for India · list of 30 as flagged on the tiles
- [Press Information Bureau, Government of India (2025), Cabinet approves National Critical Mineral Mission, 29 January 2025](https://mines.gov.in/admin/storage/ckeditor/Press_Release_Press_Information_Bureau7_1740396701.pdf) · web
- European Commission (2023), Study on the Critical Raw Materials for the EU 2023 [web ↗](https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/critical-raw-materials_en) · pdf pp. 7, 65

### 2.4 Graedel's three axes add environmental harm and vulnerability to supply restriction

The Yale group led by Thomas Graedel built the most comprehensive academic method and applied it to 62 metals and metalloids, using data for 2008. Each metal is placed in a three-dimensional criticality space. Each axis aggregates indicators scored from 0 to 100 and weighted equally, and users can change the weights.

Supply risk combines geological, technological and economic factors, such as how long reserves would last and the companion fraction, with social, regulatory and geopolitical factors in the national version. Environmental implications come from life-cycle assessment: the cradle-to-gate damage to health and ecosystems from producing one kilogram. Vulnerability to supply restriction measures how badly users would be hurt: the metal's importance, how well substitutes perform and, for a country, its import reliance.

Metals score high for different reasons. Metals for electronics and thin-film solar cells, such as gallium and selenium, score high on supply risk; the highest of all were indium, arsenic, thallium, antimony, silver and selenium. Gold, the platinum group metals and mercury score high on environmental implications, because each kilogram needs so much ore and processing. Steel alloying and high-temperature metals, such as chromium, niobium, tungsten and molybdenum, score high on vulnerability, mainly because good substitutes are lacking. No metal sits in the worst corner, high on all three, though rhodium, silver and thallium come closest.

The authors warn against binary labels: users have different goals and time scales, so designations can inform but never prescribe. Their common finding is that the metals of most concern are by-products, used in small amounts for specialised purposes, with no effective substitutes.

- Graedel et al. (2015), Criticality of metals and metalloids, PNAS [web ↗](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1500415112) · pdf pp. 1-6

### See it in the table
[U Uranium](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/uranium/)[K Potash](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/potash/)[P Phosphate rock](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/phosphate/)[Cu Copper](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/copper/)[Al Aluminium](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/aluminum/)[Ni Nickel](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/nickel/)[Fe Iron ore](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/iron_ore/)[St Steel](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/steel/)[Mn Manganese](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/manganese/)[Cr Chromium](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/chromium/)[Mo Molybdenum](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/molybdenum/)[Nb Niobium](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/niobium/)[W Tungsten](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/tungsten/)[Si Silicon](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/silicon/)

### Check your understanding

In the EU method, how is world supply weighted against EU sourcing when import reliance is 100%?
 Import reliance blends the two risk measures. At 100% IR they count equally; at 0% or below, only actual EU sourcing is used.

Natural rubber left the EU list in 2023 even though the EU imports all of it. Why?
 Supply risk is multiplied by one minus the recycling rate and by the substitution index, so small revisions moved it below the threshold. The study notes the method cannot capture a producers' cartel.

Which statement about the final 2025 US list is correct?
 The final list restored arsenic and tellurium and added four commodities under the Secretary of the Interior's authority, reaching 60.

[← Part 1: What criticality means, and why it is not scarcity](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/p1/)[Mark read · Part 3: Concentration and companionality: the anatomy of supply risk →](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/p3/)

## Other sections

- [Module overview](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/index.md)
- [What criticality means, and why it is not scarcity](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/p1/index.md)
- [Concentration and companionality: the anatomy of supply risk](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/p3/index.md)
- [Weaponised supply and the policy response](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/p4/index.md)
- [Transition minerals, their costs, and food security](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/p5/index.md)
- [Key terms, quiz and sources](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/review/index.md)