Global copper demand could reach 40 million tons by 2030, while production capacity is expected to cap at around 33 million tons. The world needs to add 10 million tons of supply within ten years, growth that previously took closer to twenty-five.
This is where our 2026 position paper, Recycling, Circular Economy & Low-Carbon Products, begins. Its argument: the way past the raw materials wall is to electrify circularly, with low-carbon cables, recycled copper, and a business, a model that focuses on the reuse of materials.
A challenge that goes beyond copper
Electrification is the backbone of the energy transition. Smart grids, renewable energy and electric mobility all require massive, sustained infrastructure deployment, and that infrastructure runs on metal. The linear “extract-produce-dispose” model that has supplied it is now obsolete, and increasingly a threat to energy security.
By 2035, global installed mining capacity will have reached its limits, bringing price volatility and structural risks of supply disruption. Most of the carbon footprint of a power network is also “embedded” upstream, in the extraction and processing of metals, long before a cable is ever installed. Regulatory pressure is intensifying at the same time, with growing demands for transparency on the carbon impact and circularity of products.
The circular economy as an industrial strategy
At Nexans, tomorrow’s electrification must be industrially sovereign, low-carbon and circular. We treat the circular economy and decarbonization as catalysts of electrification, integrated into the heart of our industrial strategy.
Because our vertical integration reaches down to our own foundries, where metal is melted and recast, we can recycle copper and aluminum in-house and treat recycling as a core industrial strategy rather than a compliance requirement. End-of-life copper recovered from “urban mines” becomes a strategic resource: it feeds our refining processes and reduces our reliance on virgin copper imports.
These commitments follow a quantified trajectory: 25% recycled copper in our cables by 2028, and net-zero emissions by 2050. The wider climate strategy and commitments behind those targets are set out on our site.
