Project
Rethinking Resources: Critical Minerals for the Energy Transition as Pathways to Social Equity and Local Growth
Major Research Project
Overview
This research investigates how social equity can be integrated into critical mineral extraction processes, essential for the renewable energy transition. The study highlights that the shift to renewable technologies has created a mineral-intensive dependency, risking the perpetuation of colonial extraction patterns, especially in the Global South. Utilizing systems mapping and strategic foresight, the project identified five key equity dimensions requiring intervention: indigenous rights, livelihood impacts, environmental justice, geopolitical power dynamics, and climate finance. The "Thriving within Limits" scenario was identified as the preferred future, emphasizing need-based extraction and equitable benefit distribution. The core finding is that achieving social equity necessitates simultaneous interventions across various leverage points, involving paradigm shifts, system goals, structural reorganization, rule changes, and feedback mechanisms. The project concludes that a successful transition requires transforming underlying power dynamics, not just technologies.
Details
​The project critically examines the assumption that critical mineral extraction in the Global South is a necessary cost for building a low-carbon economy. It explores potential futures in 2050, offering alternative perspectives and novel approaches that prioritize social equity and local growth. The study specifically focuses on four critical minerals: cobalt, copper, nickel, and lithium, crucial for renewable energy infrastructure. The research methodology employs a design thinking process structured into phases: Discover (understanding the landscape), Define (framing the system), Develop (generating futures), and Deliver (intervening in the system).
​Year 2024-25
Team -  Aavrati Kushwaha and Muskaan Chandwani
My Role - As a co-author, my role involved equal contribution to all phases of the research project. This included comprehensive literature review, detailed systems mapping, application of foresight methodologies, formulating research questions, analyzing findings, synthesizing conclusions, expert interviews and actively drafting, refining, and finalizing the research paper
Intended Audience - Government and International Organizations
Tools and frameworks used - Systems Mapping, Scenario Development, Design Thinking Process (Discover, Define, Develop, Deliver), Iterative Inquiry, Rich Context Map, Actors Mapping, Horizon Scan, Dator's Generic Images of the Future framework, Leverage Points Analysis
Keywords – Social equity, Critical minerals, Energy transition, Local growth, Vulnerable Communities
Skills used – Visual design, Human Centered Approach, Strategy Development, Trend analysis, Systems thinking, Concept Development, Microsoft Office Suite
Soft Skills- Critical thinking, Communication skills, Design thinking, team collaboration
Process
Final research question:
How can policy frameworks be shaped over the (25 years) for countries rich in critical minerals in driving a just energy transition while prioritizing social equity?    
Actors Map
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World Scenarios World Scenarios World Scenarios
Continued Growth: Growth at all Costs
In 2050, growth at all costs, the business-as-usual scenario is where fossil fuels remain dominant in energy-intensive economies.  Despite high costs and limited support, oil and gas companies leverage their competitive advantages and control the gradual increase in renewable adoption for profits.  Carbon-dependent economic systems benefit elites while multinationals practice "green capitalism." Oil and gas companies expand under the decarbonization pretense with strong lobbying influence. Energy security remains unstable and dependent on vulnerable supply chains as nations miss net-zero targets. Geopolitical alliances form on self-interest rather than climate cooperation. Consumers struggle between ethical products and affordability. Renewables are largely viewed for profit gains by lobbyists and oil and gas companies as they expand their control over critical minerals through their strategic positioning and access to finance.  Unmitigated climate change triggers cascading effects: intensifying social and economic disasters, chronic supply chain disruptions, land displacement, and significant loss of productivity. Hence, the focus is on climate adaptation and reducing environmental consequences under the pretense of a “green economy”. 
1
The transition to renewable energy, like an aging power grid, cannot simply be rebuilt from scratch. It must be carefully unlocked, restructured, and rerouted to distribute power more equitably.  For our research, we used a combination of methods and tools from disciplines including systems thinking and strategic foresight.  Our project follows a design thinking process structured to move from problem discovery (Discover) to opportunity framing (Define), and from ideation (Develop) to intervention design (Deliver). Each stage through its journey contributed to building an equity-first understanding of the critical minerals landscape.  
2
Collapse: Race for the Green Dollar
By 2050, corporate interests have captured the environmental movement, transforming green technology into wealth accumulation rather than planetary healing. Multinational corporations monopolize renewable energy markets, limiting true sustainability progress while greenflation concentrates power among global elites. The ultra-wealthy reframe environmental crisis as opportunity through "green extractivism" – resource acquisition disguised as building a sustainable world. This masks continued exploitation of natural resources and vulnerable communities. Geopolitical tensions between China and Western powers over critical minerals create international instability, making climate cooperation nearly impossible. In this volatile landscape, vulnerable communities and mining workers face perpetual danger. Without strong regulations, exploitation flourishes under the cynical banner of the "race for the green dollar," offering sustainability's appearance while delivering minimal environmental benefit.
Disciplined: "Thriving within limits"
This scenario explores the question “what ought” to happen to create the most promising conditions favourable scenario in the favour of embedding social equity in the global transition to renewable energy? It envisions a future that support vulnerable communities and mining workers while in a regulated economy that is coalition-based, a need-driven demand based. It represents a baseline scenario; Oil and Gas companies hold power and influence which has shifted to governments in “Thriving within limits”. This shift has largely shaped how markets, consumers, vulnerable communities, and mining workers will enjoy regulated policy and reporting standards, benefiting these groups.
3
Transformation: Circularity-Driven Future 
Transformation: Set in 2050, this is a Circularity Driven scenario which represents a transformation of global energy systems and economic models built around circular economy principles, prioritizing resource conservation, regeneration, and sustainable knowledge transfer. This scenario falls under the transformative pathway with higher adoption, regulated adaptation, and knowledge-based circular economy that's less energy-dependent than previous economic models. There is higher adoption of RETs because of increased climate finance which has led to increased but regulated CRMs mining.  Consumers sentiments are based on strong ethical sourcing practices and climate conscious perspective.  
4
Recommended Pathways by Identifying the Leverage Points for Critical Minerals Extraction for Social Equity
This part of the research, aims to answer the questions “what recommended pathways can be introduced in the system to support policy around CRMs extraction practices to incorporate social equity?”. The pathways and recommendations below were developed through an iterative and reflective process that synthesized findings from all phases of the research process: from framing the systems, actors mapping, horizon scanning and scenario building. After providing a comparative lens for understanding potential plausible futures, to develop pathways recommendations our research looks at the scenario “Thriving within limits”, discipline as the most normative future (Preferred).
Series of intervention points ranked from least effective (12) to most powerful (1), represented as a lever with increasing leverage as you move upward.
Find full report below here