Briefing
Transition Minerals Tracker: 2025 Global Analysis
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"The world must do better at truly listening to Indigenous voices: the Earth is not just a storehouse of resources—it is life itself, asking us to restore balance. Rushing to extract more minerals without reducing consumption or showing true respect for our rights is not only reckless – it is unjust and unfair."Edson Krenak Naknanuk (Krenak) - Cultural Survival Lead on Brazil and Securing Indigenous Peoples’ rights in the Green Economy (SIRGE) coalition Executive Committee Member
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The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre’s Transition Minerals Tracker, updated annually, monitors human rights risks linked to major mining operations for key minerals used in renewable energy, electrification, and battery technologies. This year, iron has been added to the list of minerals tracked, which already includes cobalt, copper, lithium, bauxite, manganese, nickel, and zinc.
The global update covers allegations of abuse from 2010 to 2024, with a focused snapshot of those reported in 2024.
Allegations in tracker
835
allegations
2010 - 2024
157
HRD attacks
2010 - 2024
156
allegations
2024
12
HRD attacks
2024
- With 18 new cases of reported impacts on Indigenous Peoples and 77 across all years, the Tracker shows that Indigenous Peoples continue to be disproportionately affected by an unchecked acceleration in mining for transition minerals. This is particularly concerning in view of the recent setback on the recognition of their right to free, prior and informed consent in new proposed global standards for the industry.
- The sector remains dangerous for its workers and their individual and collective rights, with 225 allegations of impacts on workers (27%), including 65 work-related deaths. These are often reported as resulting from gross occupational or health and safety violations at mining sites.
The calls of the human rights and climate movements for a radically different approach to mineral extraction, one that is balanced and rights-respecting and supports, rather than hinders, climate justice; are only getting louder. This must be on the table at the next COP in Brazil.Anabella Rosenberg, Senior strategist on Just Transition and Climate Justice at CAN International
- Ecosystems continue to be disrupted and harmed – sometimes irremediably. 408 allegations across all years related to at least one impact on the environment. This amounts to one in two allegations, of which a concerning 234 (or close to one in three allegations in the Tracker) related to water pollution and/or access to water, putting water-scarce areas under significant stress.
- Mining exacerbates gender-based inequalities. With 27 cases affecting women across all years as their personal health and livelihoods are affected, they are also more susceptible to being attacked when they act as defenders.
- 60% of allegations and attacks are associated with 20 companies across all years. In 2024, the top five companies were Georgian American Alloys (10), China Minmetals (7), Codelco (6), Grupo México (6) and Sinomine Resource Group (6)
- Of the 139 companies with at least one allegation recorded in the Tracker, less than half (44%) had a human rights policy in place at the time of publication
- Corruption and governance-related issues remain a concerning feature and a driver of human rights harms in the sector, with 47 allegations across all years. .
Transition Minerals Tracker
Explore our data on allegations, mining projects and companies through the Transition Minerals Tracker.