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Tallbo Advisory

Sustainability Due Diligence

19 December 2025

Context & Scope

The Business and Human Rights Centre recently published the briefing Strategic projects for whom? Challenges and local realities of the European Union's strategic mineral projects, which focuses on the Union’s selected strategic projects under the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) outside the EU. While that focus is understandable, there is also an urgent need to examine the selected strategic projects within the EU—particularly the extraction projects.

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In total, 47 strategic projects were selected in Commission Decision (EU) 2025/840 of 25 March 2025. Of these, 22 are extraction projects within the EU. Below is a consolidated overview of each project. For every project, I examine:

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  • the project's permitting status and whether the permit is publicly available

  • whether the project promoter has a publicly available human rights policy, in addition to a publicly available environmental policy

  • whether an environmental [and social] impact assessment (ESIA) is publicly available

  • whether any human rights or environmental concerns or allegations have been raised

  • whether the promoter participates in any mining-related initiatives or standards

  • the promoter's profile on the Business and Human Rights Centre platform

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I also analyse the Commission’s reply on 26 November 2025 to requests for internal review submitted by in total 16 NGOs under the Aarhus Regulation, including the Commission's assessment of admissibility and substantive grounds. Together, the NGOs requested reviews of the decision to recognise 14 of the 22 examined projects as strategic.

Responsibility, Sustainability and Due Diligence

Europe must take responsibility for extraction in the energy transition, it cannot solely be outsourced to the Global South. But also here extraction must respect human rights. Instead, we are seeing signs of backsliding: under the RESourceEU Action Plan, the European Commission has committed to reviewing—and potentially revising—the Water Framework Directive by the second quarter of 2026 to facilitate access to critical raw materials.

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Under Article 6 of the CRMA and following an application by the project promoter, the European Commission shall recognise a raw material project as strategic if it meets a number of criteria, including that:

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“the project would be implemented sustainably, in particular as regards the monitoring, prevention and minimisation of environmental impacts, the prevention and minimisation of socially adverse impacts through the use of socially responsible practices including respect for human rights, indigenous peoples and labour rights, in particular in the case of involuntary resettlement, potential for quality job creation and meaningful engagement with local communities and relevant social partners, and the use of transparent business practices with adequate compliance policies to prevent and minimise risks of adverse impacts on the proper functioning of public administration, including corruption and bribery”

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The provision explicitly covers both environmental and social impacts, as well as meaningful engagement with local communities and transparent business practices, in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. However, there is no reference to the UN Guiding Principles per se.

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Nevertheless, several of the project promoters fall within the scope of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, and all are likely to be part of the supply chains of in-scope companies. Those producing cobalt, lithium and nickel (lead is not a strategic raw material) will also be impacted by the Battery Regulation. Beyond these regulatory obligations, all project promoters should operate in line with the UN Guiding Principles and the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct. Where existing legislation is insufficient to identify, assess, prevent, mitigate or remedy adverse impacts on people and the environment—including on impact assessments—these international standards should guide corporate conduct.

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It is also important to note that the Battery Regulation explicitly covers “community life, including that of indigenous peoples”, while the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive does not mention indigenous peoples (except for in recital 33 on particularly vulnerable groups and recital 65 on meaningful stakeholder engagement). It does, however, cover the rights of individuals, groupings and communities to land and resources, as well as the right not to be deprived of means of subsistence. This includes a prohibition on unlawful eviction or the taking of land, forests, and waters when acquiring, developing, or otherwise using land and natural resources, including through deforestation, where such use secures a person’s livelihood. Furthermore, under Article 7 of CRMA, projects with the potential to affect indigenous peoples shall also submit:

 

"a plan containing measures dedicated to a meaningful consultation of the affected indigenous peoples about the prevention and minimisation of the adverse impacts on indigenous rights and, where appropriate, fair compensation for those peoples, as well as measures to address the outcomes of the consultation."

Setting the Scene

To provide additional context, readers may wish to watch the documentary Europe’s Lithium Paradox. Of the projects listed below, the Barroso Lithium Project, the Keliber Lithium Project, and the EMILI Project are mentioned in the documentary. The latter two are described as having little opposition. However, documented opposition does exist.

Image by MiningWatch Portugal

Selected Strategic Projects: Extraction in the EU

Projects

Internal Review Requests

Between spring and summer 2025, multiple NGOs submitted requests for internal review to the European Commission, challenging the designation of specific strategic projects under the CRMA. These requests were submitted with reference to Articles 10–11 of the Aarhus Regulation. Pursuant to Article 10(1) of the Aarhus Regulation:

  

“Any non-governmental organisation or other members of the public that meet the criteria set out in Article 11 shall be entitled to make a request for internal review to the Union institution or body that adopted the administrative act or, in the case of an alleged administrative omission, should have adopted such an act, on the grounds that such an act or omission contravenes environmental law within the meaning of point (f) of Article 2(1).

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Such requests shall be made in writing and within a time limit not exceeding eight weeks after the administrative act was adopted, notified or published, whichever is the latest, or, in the case of an alleged administrative omission, eight weeks after the date when the administrative act was required. The request shall state the grounds for the review.”

Extraction Projects Subject to Internal Review

Of the extraction projects examined above, the following were covered:

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Barroso Lithium Project, Portugal
Requesting NGOs: Associação Unidos em Defesa de Covas do Barroso (UDCB), MiningWatch Portugal, Fundación ClientEarth (Spain), ClientEarth AISBL


Cínovec Lithium Project, Czechia
Requesting NGO: CINVALD


Rovina Project, Romania
Requesting NGOs: Declic, Asociatia Centrul Independent pentru Dezvoltarea Resurselor de Mediu


Sakatti Project and Kolmisoppi Project, Finland
Requesting NGOs: Finnish Association for Conservation of Nature, Kansalaisten Kaivosvaltuuskunta – MiningWatch Finland


Sakatti Project, Kolmisoppi Project, and Keliber Lithium Project, Finland
Requesting NGOs: Kansalaisten Kaivosvaltuuskunta – MiningWatch Finland, Vesiluonnon puolesta


ReeMAP Project and Talga Natural Graphite ONE Project, Sweden
Requesting NGO: Naturskyddsföreningen Norrbotten (in association with Gabna Sámi Village and Talma Sámi Village)

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Aguablanca Project, Las Navas Project, Mina Doade Project, El Moto Project, P6 Metals Project, and Polymetallic Primary Sulphide Project, Spain
Requesting NGOs: Ecologistas en Acción CODA, also on behalf of Ecologistas en Acción Sevilla, Ecologistas en Acción Extremadura, Ecologistas en Acción Ciudad Real, Fundación Montescola

Commission Reasoning and Legal Interpretation

On 26 November 2025, the Commission published its reply, accompanied by an annex detailing the admissibility and assessment of the requests. The Commission found that all requests were admissible under the Aarhus Regulation. In several cases, NGOs had not submitted complete documentation but the Commission accepted alternative evidence.

 

The requesting NGOs raised eight substantive grounds for review. While the precise formulation of the grounds varied across requests, they broadly concerned:

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  1. The project falls outside the scope of the CRMA (Article 2(14) CRMA);

  2. The project does not contribute to EU security of supply (Article 6(1)(a) CRMA);

  3. The project fails to meet technical feasibility requirements (Article 6(1)(b) CRMA);

  4. The project does not comply with the sustainability requirement regarding the monitoring, prevention and minimisation of environmental impacts (Article 6(1)(c) CRMA);

  5. The project does not prevent or minimise socially adverse impacts (Article 6(1)(c) CRMA);

  6. The project violates the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union;

  7. The project violates Article 9 of the Aarhus Regulation;

  8. The Commission violated its duty to state reasons.

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The Commission rejected every ground.

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In relation to environmental and social impacts (ground 4 and 5), the Commission’s reasoning rests on two core moves. The Commission repeatedly emphasised that CRMA designation does not authorise mining. It does not replace or prejudge:

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  • Environmental impact assessments

  • Habitats Directive assessments

  • Water Framework Directive compliance

  • national permitting decisions.

 

Thus, even though Article 6(1)(c) of the CRMA requires that strategic projects monitor, prevent and minimise environmental impacts and prevent or minimise socially adverse impacts, Article 6(1)(c) is not directly enforceable at the designation stage.

 

The Commission also deliberately separated environmental and social impacts. It held that environmental impacts fall within environmental law and are therefore, in principle, reviewable under the Aarhus Regulation. Environmental sustainability is therefore treated as procedurally deferred, rather than substantively assessed.

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By contrast, the Commission held that socially adverse impacts—including impacts on communities, Indigenous peoples, livelihoods, labour rights, and social conflict—fall outside the scope of internal review under the Aarhus Regulation since they do not fall within “environmental law”. As a result, these arguments cannot be examined at all.

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This is not a deferral, but an outright exclusion. Without providing another avenue for review. 

Structural Consequences for Social Impacts

Even if the outcome would likely have been the same had social impacts been included, the Commission’s reasoning illustrates a structural imbalance between environmental and social impacts in EU law—despite legislation such as the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the Battery Regulation. This imbalance is not limited to the Aarhus review procedure; it is embedded in the EU’s foundational environmental assessment framework.

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The basis for EU Member States legislation on impact assessments is the so called EIA Directive. In it, the Commission states that environmental impact assessments shall identify, describe and assess in an appropriate manner, in the light of each individual case, the direct and indirect significant effects of a project on the following factors:

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  • population and human health

  • biodiversity

  • land, soil, water, air and climate

  • material assets, cultural heritage and the landscape

  • the interaction between the factors referred to in points (a) to (d).

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This is a key reason why most companies limit themselves to environmental impact assessments (EIAs), rather than environmental and social impact assessments (ESIAs) that systematically address all human rights risks.

 

This situation is furthermore likely to persist—regardless of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the Battery Regulation—until the EU assumes full responsibility for addressing both environmental and social impacts across its legislative framework.

Conclusions

This review of selected strategic extraction projects in the EU reveals a persistent gap between the transparency and sustainability expectations set out in the CRMA and current practice among project promoters. Only seven of the 22 project promoters have publicly available human rights policies, and none of the project websites provide permitting decisions. While seven projects either publish environmental (and social) impact assessments or refer to relevant government databases, the majority do not. In several of the cases, impact assessment and/or permitting processes are still ongoing. However, several projects that have been operational for years still do not make such documentation publicly available. This raises concerns about compliance with the CRMA requirement for “transparent business practices with adequate compliance policies to prevent and minimise risks of adverse impacts.”

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Opposition is present around almost all strategic extraction projects, although the intensity and visibility of conflict vary considerably. The most sustained and vocal opposition is observed in Portugal and Spain, as well as in projects affecting Sámi rights in northern Europe, where Europe’s only recognised Indigenous people face increasing pressure due to the energy transition. Across multiple cases, stakeholders do not only contest project outcomes, but also question the consultation processes themselves, pointing to shortcomings in meeting the standard of meaningful stakeholder engagement set out in the CRMA. 

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Engagement with mining-related initiatives and standards is limited, with only a minority of promoters participating in such schemes. In addition, 12 of the promoters are covered by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, signalling the existence of publicly raised human rights concerns linked to the promoter or its activities.

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The accessibility of official documentation varies markedly between Member States. In many countries, permits and environmental (and social) impact assessments are difficult to locate despite being formally public information. Portugal and Finland stand out as comparatively strong performers, with Finland in particular providing comprehensive, well-structured, and user-friendly databases. The Finnish platforms not only support public scrutiny but also appear to facilitate greater transparency by project promoters, who more frequently publish documentation directly or reference official sources. Taken together, these findings underscore that transparency and meaningful engagement are not merely functions of promoter willingness, but are strongly shaped by the regulatory and administrative environments in which projects are embedded.

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The findings also point to structural constraints within the existing legislative framework. Current EU and national rules do not appear sufficiently robust to capture the full spectrum of risks associated with strategic extraction projects, a limitation that is partly inherent in the scope and design of EU law. In its review of strategic project designations, the Commission clarifies that the substantive assessment of environmental and social impacts is to take place at national level. In practice, this assessment is largely anchored in national legislation transposing the EIA Directive, which does not systematically address all risks. As a consequence, strategic projects may proceed without a substantive assessment of human rights impacts, notwithstanding parallel EU legislation such as the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the Battery Regulation. Moreover, the review mechanism available at EU level—the Aarhus Regulation—does not extend to human rights impacts, further reinforcing the structural separation between environmental and social considerations within the current framework.

Recommendations

Project Promoters

  1. Publish permitting documentation and other key project information. Ensure that all permits, assessments and supporting documents needed for meaningful engagement, local participation and consent are publicly available, accessible and regularly updated.

  2. Adopt and publicly disclose a robust human rights policy. Where no policy exists, develop and publish one; where a policy exists, update it to cover all relevant topics. Put in place governance structures to implement and periodically review the policy. Where relevant, adopt and publish complementary policies, such as a community engagement policy, a human rights defenders policy, and an Indigenous peoples policy.

  3. Conduct comprehensive environmental and social impact assessments (ESIA). Ensure that both environmental and social impacts are assessed to international standards. Publish the full ESIAs on the same platform as permits and other project documents.

  4. Acknowledge and remediate legacy environmental and social harms. Where projects involve the acquisition, reopening, or expansion of existing or historic mining sites, promoters should explicitly assess legacy environmental damage and community impacts, and take responsibility for remediation. The transfer of ownership does not extinguish environmental and social liabilities; companies that acquire existing assets also acquire the associated environmental and community debt and should address it in line with international standards on remediation.

  5. Strengthen transparency on concerns, allegations and grievance handling. Publicly report human rights and environmental concerns or allegations and explain how they are being addressed. This information should be accessible not only through sustainability reports (which affected communities rarely read) but also on the same platform hosting permits and ESIAs. Provide contact details for stakeholder engagement managers and ensure that your notification mechanism and complaints procedure are in line with the eight effectiveness criteria for grievance mechanisms.

  6. Participate in credible mining standards and pursue site-level certification. Engage in mining-related initiatives or standards and work toward certification at the project-site level. Note that the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance is generally regarded as the most rigorous standard, due to its multi-stakeholder governance. For comparison, see An Assessment of Third-Party Assurance and Accreditation Schemes - Lead the Charge.

  7. Ensure full compliance with the CSDDD, where applicable. If the company falls within the Directive’s scope, prepare now to comply fully by 26 July 2029.

Member States

  1. Apply existing permitting and impact assessment frameworks rigorously, irrespective of accelerated timelines. While the CRMA introduces accelerated procedures for strategic projects, Member States must ensure that expedited timelines do not dilute the quality, scope, or independence of environmental and social impact assessments, permitting decisions, or public participation. Procedural acceleration should not result in substantive shortcuts.

  2. Strengthen national requirements for environmental and social impact assessment. National legislation transposing the EIA Directive should be complemented by explicit requirements to assess human rights impacts. The transposition of the CSDDD further underscores the need to update and align national impact assessment frameworks accordingly.

  3. Ensure comprehensive and accessible public databases for permits and impact assessments. Member States should make all permits, environmental and social impact assessments, and related decisions available through centralised, searchable, and user-friendly public databases. Finland provides a model of good practice.

  4. Guarantee meaningful stakeholder engagement in practice, not only in law. Authorities should ensure that consultation processes are accessible, adequately resourced, culturally appropriate, and conducted early enough to influence outcomes, in line with CRMA and CSDDD requirements.

  5. Clarify expectations for legacy sites and historic impacts. Permitting authorities should require promoters to identify and address legacy environmental and social harms as part of project approval and monitoring, where mines have been operational in the past.

European Commission

  1. Operationalise ongoing review and potential withdrawal of strategic project status. The Commission should develop and publish clear criteria and procedures for the periodic review of whether recognised strategic projects continue to fulfil the requirements of Article 6(1), including the sustainability criteria in Article 6(1)(c). While substantive assessments are carried out through national permitting and assessment procedures (at least within the EU), the Commission should ensure that strategic status remains conditional over time by systematically drawing on relevant national decisions, assessments, and publicly available information—including on unresolved concerns or allegations.

  2. Align environmental assessment, due diligence, and strategic industrial policy frameworks. The coexistence of the CRMA, EIA Directive, CSDDD, and sector-specific regulations such as the Battery Regulation requires greater coherence. Strategic projects should not benefit from accelerated or privileged treatment without sufficient safeguards for human rights impacts.

  3. Address the structural exclusion of social and human rights impacts in EU review mechanisms. The limitation of the Aarhus Regulation to environmental law creates a significant accountability gap. The EU should explore ways to ensure that strategic project designations can be reviewed also from a human rights standpoint.

  4. Promote transparency as a condition of strategic status. Strategic project designation should be contingent on demonstrable promoter transparency, including public access to permits, impact assessments, and information on stakeholder engagement and grievance handling.

© 2025 by Kristin Tallbo

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