🟢 Cities as Mines

​This event is part of The Drop 2024. To attend, you must have a ticket to The Drop. Apply for a Drop 2024 ticket.

​Session Overview: Urban mining is one of several solutions needed to address the growing demand for critical raw materials required for renewable energy technologies and electronics, while simultaneously reducing the environmental impact of extractive mining. As we push towards net-zero, the need for metals and minerals used in solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and other clean technologies is skyrocketing. However, conventional mining practices are energy-intensive, contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, and often result in environmental degradation and social conflicts. Urban mining (the recovery of valuable materials from discarded products and waste streams) offers a more sustainable and circular approach to meeting this demand.

​Key Questions:

• ​Will the logistics, safety, and complexity of the feedstocks ever enable Urban Mining to be more economical than traditional extractive mining?

• ​How will emerging urban mining players secure supply/feedstocks?

• ​Who will control those feedstocks and what advantages or challenges could arise if companies hold onto their critical metals (e.g., automotive OEMs maintaining ownership of batteries in order to control their end-of-life)

• ​What new technologies do we need to effectively scale urban mining and enable it to compete with the huge scale of extractive mining?

• ​Does it make sense for traditional mining companies to enter this space?

• ​Which financing models are best suited for this sector? Are business models suitable for venture scale returns?

• ​Equally, does the risk match with lower cost of capital thresholds? Does the value lie in the technology or project ownership?

​Who should attend? We want attendees who have already considered battery recycling, e-waste recycling, metal recycling, or critical metals more broadly. Attendees should join to gather insights on what specifically it is going to take to compete and win as an urban miner.