Transition Minerals Tracker: 2026 global analysis
The solutions to the climate crisis are today well known: full fossil fuel phase-out and swift deployment of wind and solar capacity, coupled with general electrification. This critical new energy expansion is helping to fuel a global mining boom for copper, cobalt and the other transition minerals – accelerated by growing competition and pressure from other expanding sectors such as tech and defence.
But increasing mineral demand is also fuelling environmental and human rights risks.
New data reveals a dramatic surge in human rights abuses linked to the mines supplying materials for the global energy transition. Published by the Business and Human Rights Centre, the Transition Minerals Tracker has documented the human rights implications of mining operations for key minerals used in renewable energy, electrification, and battery technologies, since 2010. These allegations are closely linked to rising social conflict around mining operations and should raise concern across the renewable energy value chain, from mining companies to end-users of their products.
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Our latest analysis, covering allegations of abuse from 2010 to 2025, with a focused snapshot of those reported in 2025. This year, rare earth elements have been added to the list of minerals tracked – now covering cobalt, copper, iron, lithium, bauxite, manganese, nickel, rare earth elements and zinc.
The moral case and the business case, once deemed at odds by some, have clear common ground: resilient mineral supply chains can only be built with respect for people, ecosystems, and local benefits.Erica Westenberg – Director of Governance Programs, Natural Resource Governance Institute
Explore resources
Targeted guidance and recommendations
Responsible sourcing: what renewable energy and electrification companies need to know about transition minerals
This primer sets out how RE companies can engage in the mining sector to reduce exposure to risks and supply chain disruptions, while supporting sustainability.
Responsible mining investment: what investors need to know
This primer sets out investors’ main opportunities to take action to address salient human rights risks through responsible investment.
Secure mineral supply chains at the expense of human rights? What governments need to know
This primer sets out how governments can incentivise - and regulate - mining companies to respect human rights.
Allegations data
1,226
allegations of abuse
2010-2025
44
allegations led to lawsuits and regulatory action
2025
329
allegations of abuse
2025
42
attacks against defenders
2025
- The energy transition is fuelling a global race to secure access to key minerals, intensified by growing demand from technology and defence sectors. This is driving a surge in risks of human rights harms at an alarming rate. With 329 new allegations in 2025, there has been a 73% year-on-year increase in allegations of abuse against previously tracked mines across all regions.
- This includes a 50% rise in attacks on defenders as civic space is increasingly closing for them to safely raise concerns and a doubling of worker rights violations. Marginalised groups such as Indigenous communities and women are bearing a disproportionate brunt of these harms.
- 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.
- Ignoring rightsholders is fuelling social conflicts, undermining and disrupting supply chains that the energy transition depends on. In 2025 alone, 27 mine suspensions, closures, or slowdowns were recorded, and one in seven allegations led to lawsuits and regulatory action.
The green energy transition may look sustainable, but in Kachin State, Myanmar, it is driving destructive rare earth mining. Our forests are being cleared, our land is unstable, and our water and air are polluted.Hkaw Lwi from Bridging Rural Integrated Development and Grassroot Empowerment (BRIDGE)
- Corporate accountability remains dangerously weak. Just ten companies and 33 mines accounted for 50% of all 2025 allegations, led by Glencore, Rio Tinto and First Quantum Minerals – in part due to their market dominance. Smaller, private companies continue to largely escape accountability.
- Close to half of mines linked to allegations of abuse lacked even a basic public human rights policy. The absence of meaningful human rights due diligence is creating systemic risk across the entire renewable energy value chain.
- Investors are particularly exposed, as nearly 70% of implicated projects are linked to listed companies.
Governments of producing countries and sourcing countries alike, mining companies and their investors must come to grips with a fundamental truth: rights-based governance, fair negotiations including respect for the FPIC of Indigenous Peoples and zero tolerance for attacks against defenders, and shared prosperity, are not nice-to-have features but essential imperatives. Failing this, the harms now commonly associated with transition mineral mining will only worsen – resulting in conflicts and their attending costs, unreliable supply chains and limited or absent value addition for resource-rich countries.
Now is the time to forge a new path. The time is ripe to shape and accelerate conversations on rights-based global governance frameworks for mineral value chains, from extraction to refining to reuse. This is essential to support cooperation instead of competition, to raise the bar on full implementation of best-in-class international standards for responsible business conduct, and to mobilize technical and financial support for producer countries seeking to strengthen national regulations.Erica Westenberg – Director of Governance Programs, Natural Resource Governance Institute