Welcome to the track “Technical Solutions”. The content of this module is spread over two parts. You will look at important technical aspects for tackling some of the resource challenges you learnt about before. We will start off with a lecture on exploration from which you will learn how critical raw material resources are discovered. Afterwards, you will learn about the role of substitution, its different types and applications, and its potential for reducing critical raw materials use as well as environmental impacts.

In the second part, we will look at the urban mine and how to characterise it. You will evaluate the potential of the urban mine by using the database urbanminingplatform.eu. In the module on process-model based LCA, we will look at the thermodynamic limitations of recycling and relate an analytical tool to evaluate the recyclability of products. Last but not least, you will familiarise yourself with an approach to evaluate the sustainability of products and processes.