Critical mineral mining and environmental sustainability: Impacts, challenges, and pathways for responsible resource development

The accelerating global transition toward low-carbon energy systems has substantially increased demand for critical minerals, including lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, and rare earth elements. These minerals are essential for renewable energy technologies, electric mobility, and advanced industrial applications. However, their extraction and processing generate significant environmental and socio-ecological challenges. This review adopts a structured narrative synthesis approach
to critically evaluate the environmental impacts of critical mineral development across major producing regions worldwide. Key
issues include land degradation, deforestation, water depletion and contamination, greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and biodiversity loss, particularly in ecologically sensitive and water-stressed regions. The analysis further highlights how these impacts are often unevenly distributed, disproportionately affecting local communities, Indigenous populations, and environmentally vulnerable areas. Beyond environmental risks, the review examines governance challenges, supply-chain inequities, and the growing sustainability paradox in which minerals required for decarbonization may themselves be produced
through environmentally intensive pathways. Emerging mitigation strategies, including circular-economy models, recycling, material efficiency, cleaner extraction technologies, and transparent ESG-based governance frameworks, are critically assessed for their potential to reduce environmental footprints and enhance resource security.