Risks to energy and economic security from high levels of concentration in critical mineral supply chains became a reality in 2025. All of the IEA’s six focus minerals – copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and rare earth elements – are set to see strong demand growth, driven by their central role in energy and strategic industrial applications. Yet diversification has lagged demand, with processing and refining remaining highly concentrated. Risks from concentration materialised in 2025 as new export controls threatened the supply of materials critical to strategic and economically important industries.

Recent years have seen a proliferation of new policies and strategies to address these security risks. Policy approaches differ across countries, reflecting variations in their strategic priorities. Producing countries tend to adopt policies that encourage domestic projects or enhance domestic oversight over use of mineral resources. Consuming countries, by contrast, have focused more on reducing concentration, enabling diversification and promoting responsible practices across global mineral supply chains, often through introduction of sourcing requirements.

Traceability is a foundational tool for implementing effective policies. It enables governments and companies to track where minerals originate, how they move through supply chains, who has custody of them and how they are transformed. Traced material can have further data attached – such as sustainability or quality attributes – which can become relevant depending on the policy objective. Together, these data can underpin measures contingent on origin or performance, such as diversified sourcing incentives, requirements linked to responsible production and conditions attached to public finance and procurement.

The IEA and the OECD conducted a joint survey on traceability with more than 80 respondent companies active in critical mineral supply chains. Based on insights from the survey, this report sets out the current state of play and identifies priority actions to strengthen the role of traceability in supporting energy and economic security. The OECD is set to release a separate report on the role of traceability in supporting resilient and responsible supply chains.

Companies have begun implementing traceability systems, but uptake remains uneven across minerals, regions and supply chain segments. Based on the IEA-OECD joint survey, two-thirds of respondent companies report having some form of traceability system – 30% with full coverage and 40% across selected minerals or supply chains. Upstream companies are implementing traceability systems at twice the rate of downstream and midstream actors. Adoption across all supply chain segments is most advanced in cobalt supply chains, reflecting long-standing efforts to improve visibility, followed by graphite and copper. Lithium and nickel supply chains see the strongest adoption in the upstream, where around 50% of companies reported having a traceability system. Companies operating in rare earth supply chains show strong future intent to implement traceability, driven by growing geopolitical concerns, although implementation has so far been constrained by persistent structural challenges.

While adoption of traceability systems is relatively high, depth and end-to-end coverage remain limited. Nearly all companies with traceability systems report collecting country of origin data, while more detailed provenance information is less widely covered. Corporate transparency or environmental data collection are collected at around half the rate. Companies in the midstream and downstream segments report environmental indicators at higher rates than those in the upstream, reflecting greater exposure to regulatory pressures in key consuming countries. End-to-end traceability nevertheless remains limited, with coverage typically dropping sharply beyond companies’ direct suppliers, underscoring ongoing challenges in extending implementation across multiple tiers of the supply chain.

Companies adopt traceability for different reasons, reflecting their position in the value chain and exposure to risk. Nearly two thirds of surveyed companies cite brand or reputational considerations and customer demand among their top three drivers, while over 40% cite compliance with regulatory requirements. Downstream companies are primarily driven by market-facing pressures linked to product sales, whereas upstream companies are more strongly motivated by regulatory compliance. This reflects differing exposure to consumer scrutiny, risk and market access conditions along the supply chain. Survey responses also indicate that traceability can serve as a de-risking mechanism to attract investment, particularly in more nascent supply chains, such as graphite, rare earths and lithium, where respondents more often cited geopolitical risk management and investor obligations as key drivers.

Traceability is beginning to support market differentiation, but price signals remain weak. Only one quarter of surveyed companies reported receiving some form of premium for differentiated materials, either linked to verified origin or to specific performance-related attributes such as low-emissions production or social audit certification. This suggests that while traceability can already support differentiated sourcing, price signals are not yet sufficiently widespread or consistent to drive market-based sourcing decisions at scale. This pattern is reflected in current traceability data collection practices. Most surveyed companies collect core data elements on provenance and ownership that provide a foundation for policy tools that support diversification based on origin (e.g. sourcing requirements). Far fewer collect environmental, social or corporate transparency data, which would be necessary to underpin a broader range of policy approaches, such as standards-based markets.  

Cost, lack of interoperability and limited incentives for sharing information are significant barriers that continue to constrain the scaling of traceability systems. High implementation costs were selected as the primary barrier by over half of surveyed companies, reflecting the substantial upfront investment required for digital infrastructure, system integration and staff capacity. Companies also cite limited interoperability between systems, commercial confidentiality concerns and weak incentives to share information beyond suppliers as key challenges. These challenges are not evenly distributed across the supply chain: constraints are particularly acute at the midstream stage, where blending, aggregation and commercial sensitivities frequently create bottlenecks for data transmission and chain-of-custody along the supply chain.

Government actions can help to support wider uptake of traceability systems. Around three-quarters of surveyed companies indicate that they are willing to increase investment in traceability over the next three years. A phased approach can help translate growing momentum into practical outcomes, focusing initial efforts on a few mineral supply chains with greater ease of implementation. This can help identify challenges and implement improvements. Over time, measures can be introduced in more complex supply chains and with other data fields. As traceability systems mature, governments can leverage verified supply chain data to enable mechanisms that reward diversified and responsible production. This report presents five recommendations for policymakers:

1. Strengthen incentives for collecting and sharing verified data across the supply chain, combining regulatory and financial or market-based measures.

2. Provide financial support for traceability infrastructure, lowering upfront and operational costs particularly for upstream and smaller actors.

3. Collaborate at the international level to harmonise traceability standards, improving interoperability, comparability and trust between market actors and across jurisdictions.

4. Enhance co-operation between upstream and downstream jurisdictions, including through technical assistance and shared platforms.

5. Adopt a pragmatic approach focusing on less complex supply chains and an initial set of core data elements, scaling up to more complex supply chains and additional data fields over time.