Abstract
Copper is widely used in buildings, transportation and home appliances, resulting in steadily increasing demand in China. From 2013 on, China has implemented the “Green Fence” policy to restrict copper scrap imports, which have affected and will continue to affect its future copper supply. To explore how China's copper demand can be met in the future, including the effects of the “Green Fence” policy change, in this paper a stock-driven approach is combined with a scenario analysis. We compare two scenarios (Continuity Policy, Circular Economy) and assess the influence of the “Green Fence” policy on each. We conclude that effective measures to prolong product lifetime could lead to a significant reduction in copper demand. Given the limited scope for domestic mining, China will still have to depend largely on imports of primary material in the form of concentrates and refined copper or, otherwise, put major emphasis on its recycling industry and continue to import high-quality copper scrap. In combination with the establishment of a state-of-the-art, efficient and environmentally friendly recycling industry, secondary copper could satisfy the bulk of Chinese copper demand and this could be an opportunity for China to transition to a more circular economy with regard to copper.
Highlights
Copper is an indispensable resource for a wide range of applications
We present results and discussions for the historical copper supply of China (Section 3.1), the resulting of future copper demand (Section 3.2), the resulting of future copper supply (Section 3.3), the discussions on sustainability performance of future Chinese copper cycle (Section 3.4) and uncertainty and limitations of this study (Section 3.5)
We used a stock-driven method to estimate the implications of a continuity policy scenario (Green Fence policy: ban of cat. 7 scrap and restrictions on cat. 6) and a circular economy scenario (Green Fence policy: ban of cat. 7 scrap and restrictions on cat. 6; increasing product lifetimes and recycling rates) for copper demand and supply in China up to 2100
Summary
Copper is an indispensable resource for a wide range of applications. In recent years, with China's vigorous development of their electricity infrastructure and the rise of electric vehicles, copper consumption has increased enormously. Under the current policy plan, this fast-growing demand is expected to continue in the near future, which might cause future supply problems and environmental issues related to copper production (Elshkaki et al, 2016; OECD, 2019; Van der Voet et al, 2018). Secondary copper production has seen a significant development in the past few years. China has implemented several policies to improve the environmental performance of its copper industry since 2013, one of which is to increase the number of inspections and restrict the import of low-quality copper scrap: the so-called “Green Fence” policy (State Council of China, 2013). The decision on whether or not to continue to import copper scrap will undoubtedly affect the future development of China's copper industry, and because of its sheer size the global picture as well. It is important to explore what impact this “Green Fence” policy will have on Chinese copper supply and how Chinese copper demand will be met
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