Disruption risks to material supply chains in the electronics sector

Abstract

Electronic products are an essential part of modern society, but their importance has perhaps never been as palpable as when the COVID-19 pandemic forced almost every aspect of human interaction to go online. However, the pandemic also revealed that the supply chains that provide crucial raw materials for manufacturing electronics are increasingly vulnerable to social, geopolitical, and technical disruptions. These vulnerabilities are likely to escalate in the future, due to global health crises, natural disasters, and global political instability, all of which will be magnified by looming climate change impacts. This study investigates potential supply chain disruption risks in the electronics sector by applying metrics that capture supply, demand, socio-political, and environmental risks in a multi-criteria framework to almost 40 metals and minerals that provide critical functionality to electronic products. Results illustrate that the material risks varied with the potential nature of the disruption. For example, in scenarios where disruptions led to price volatility or weakening of environmental regulations, highest risks were observed for precious metals such as gold, rhodium, platinum, and palladium. On the other hand, in scenarios where disruptions led to supply pressures or geopolitical tensions, cobalt, gallium, and key rare earth elements exhibited the highest risks. These metals are characterized by energy-intense manufacturing and highly concentrated geographic production, suggesting that recycling and supply chain diversification may alleviate some of the identified risks. The analysis also considers trade-offs that may occur across social, economic, and environmental dimensions. For example, cobalt, a critical component in lithium-ion batteries, has significant social impacts due to production concentration in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Shifting production to other regions may alleviate these risks but introduce new concerns about economic and environmental impacts.