Life Cycle Assessment of Rare Earth Permanent Magnets

Join us for the 7th Rare Earth Roundtable, hosted by EIT RawMaterials under the MAGELLAN Project, focusing on: “Life Cycle Assessment of Rare Earth Permanent Magnets”.

Rare-earth permanent magnets, particularly NdFeB, are at the heart of Europe’s green and digital transitions, enabling high-efficiency electric vehicle traction motors, wind turbines, and many other strategic applications. At the same time, their supply chains remain highly concentrated outside Europe and are associated with significant environmental impacts.

Under the EU Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), permanent magnets are now explicitly targeted with circularity requirements, including obligations on recyclability and recycled content information at the product level. This pushes industry, policymakers, and investors to move beyond anecdotal claims and rely on robust, transparent evidence on environmental performance.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is recognised in EU policy as the best available framework to assess environmental impacts across a product’s entire life cycle – from mining, processing and manufacturing through use, end-of-life and potential recycling. For magnets and end use application such as EVTMs, this means capturing complex upstream and downstream flows, comparing primary and secondary routes, and understanding trade-offs between design options, recycling technologies, and alternative magnet chemistries.

The event aims to:

• Demystify LCA for audience active in the rare earths and magnet value chain (industry, recyclers, OEMs, policymakers, investors).
• Showcase MAGELLAN’s LCA/LCC approach as an example of how to assess a circular permanent magnet value chain, including recycling, advanced manufacturing processes, and EVTM design.
• Discuss key methodological and data challenges in applying LCA to magnets and magnet-containing products, especially when modelling recycling and circular loops.
• Connect LCA to regulation, standards, and business decisions, including CRMA implementation, eco-design requirements, magnet waste codes, and labelling initiatives.
• Identify future collaboration needs (data sharing, common datasets, methodological guidance) to mainstream robust LCA across the European rare-earth ecosystem.

This 8th Rare Earth Roundtable will explore how LCA can guide decisions along the rare-earth magnet value chain - from mining and recycling strategies to motor design, regulation and investment - drawing on an in-depth case study from MAGELLAN project and perspectives from industry and policy.

Meet the speakers