Climate Home News is seeking pitches on the trends shaping the extraction, processing and governance of key raw materials for the energy transition, including lithium, nickel, copper and rare earths.

The race to secure minerals and metals used to manufacture clean energy technologies has ushered in a new era for mining and natural resource diplomacy.

However, the world is at risk of trading one crisis for another without robust regulations and practices to ensure that mineral extraction and processing doesn’t come at the expense of environmental protection and respect for human rights.

At Climate Home News, we want to investigate ideas, innovations and practices to clean up mineral supply chains while holding actors that cause social and environmental harm to account. This work is part of our Clean Energy Frontier series.

What we are looking for

We are looking for news stories and more in-depth pieces that robustly examine ways to address social and sustainability challenges in the minerals supply chain, track global governance efforts and hold large players accountable for harms to people and the environment.

This could include:

• Technological advances in extraction and processing, supply chain traceability, battery technology and recycling that help limit the environmental impact associated with producing clean energy technologies and ease pressure for new mining.
• Policies designed to address sustainability challenges and social conflict in mineral supply chains.
• Efforts by countries to add value to their mineral resources and ensure local people meaningfully engage with, and benefit from, mineral extraction and processing. We also want to know what is being done globally to support these efforts.
• Best practice examples of how local communities can effectively and equitably benefit from mining projects and where benefit-sharing has gone wrong.
• Developments in the global governance of mineral supply chains, such as regional or international agreements.
• How global trade deals and restrictions are reshaping minerals supply chains and who stands to benefit (or lose out).
• Financial flows and mechanisms to support developing countries’ green industrialisation agendas and the development of clean energy manufacturing.

The ideal story will have an original angle that captures the attention of our international audience.

Most of the articles we are seeking to commission are news stories. However, we are also open to pitches for investigative reporting.

What we are not looking for

• Stories about community opposition to a renewable energy project
• Stories about opposition to mining projects which fail to robustly investigate the reasons for the opposition or fail to engage with local authorities and mining companies
• Stories about start-ups and technological innovations that fail to robustly examine the company’s c