Experience drawn from projecting critical material flows along the life-cycle of optoelectronic products

This paper presents the research approach, methodology and challenges experienced when modelling future flows of critical materials along the life cycle of emerging opto-electronic products (cadmium telluride photovoltaics and LED products). When estimating future material flows, uncertainties about future technological, economical and political developments come into play. Therefore the method has to be complemented with foresight and sociological methods in order to develop scenarios which take various possible developments into account. The main challenges linked to emerging technologies are data gaps and uncertainties such as: future material content in the product, future efficiency of the processes (production, collection, recycling) and market developments. In this paper several foresight methods have been proposed to narrow down those uncertainties such as expert interviews, roadmap analysis, trend and policy analysis, wild card analysis and scenario workshops.