The Geopolitical Supply Risk method, originally developed by Gemechu et al. (2016) and subsequently extended by Helbig et al. (2016a) and Cimprich et al. (2017, 2018), is aimed at incorporating supply risk assessment of “critical raw materials” as a complement to environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) within life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA). In this article, we further extend the method to consider the risk-mitigating potential of domestic recycling – thus advancing considerations of “circular economy” strategies for managing materials criticality. Our method captures two mechanisms through which domestic recycling can affect supply risk: a reduction in total imports (the “reduction effect”), and a potential redistribution of the import supply mix (the “redistribution effect”). We consider a range of outcomes from a best-case scenario (displacing imports from the riskiest trade partners) to a worst-case scenario (displacing imports from the least risky trade partners). Using our recently developed automated calculation tool, which significantly improves the practical applicability of the method by facilitating the otherwise burdensome computations required, we test and demonstrate our method on 13 raw materials used for information and communication technologies in the European Union. Thus, we test the notion that recycling mitigates supply risk. The reality is more complex. To maximize risk mitigation, recycling should ideally take place domestically, recycled material should be reinserted into the domestic economy, and the import supply mix should be considered, especially given that the redistribution effect sometimes exceeds the reduction effect.

地缘政治供应风险方法，最初由Gemechu等人开发。（2016年），随后由Helbig等人扩展。（2016a）和Cimprich等。（2017年，2018年）旨在将“关键原材料”的供应风险评估作为对环境生命周期评估（LCA）的补充，纳入生命周期可持续性评估（LCSA）。在本文中，我们进一步扩展了该方法，以考虑缓解国内回收利用的潜在风险-从而推进了对“循环经济”策略进行材料关键性管理的考虑。我们的方法捕获了国内回收利用可影响供应风险的两种机制：总进口量的减少（“减少效应”）和进口供应结构的潜在再分配（“再分配效应”）。我们考虑了一系列结果，从最佳情况（取代从风险最大的贸易伙伴的进口）到最坏情况（取代风险最小的贸易伙伴的进口）。使用我们最近开发的自动计算工具，该工具可以简化所需的繁琐计算工作，从而显着提高了该方法的实用性，我们对欧盟13种用于信息和通信技术的原材料进行了测试和演示。因此，我们测试了回收减少供应风险的观念。现实更加复杂。为了最大程度地降低风险，理想情况下，应在国内进行回收，应将回收材料重新插入国内经济，并应考虑进口供应结构，