Integrating Circular Economy Principles and Practices in Indonesia’s Nickel Sector: Overview, Benefits, and Enabling Conditions
Download PDFA policy report by Laura Garcia Cancino, Hansika Agrawal, and Ben Baraga
Circularity in Indonesia’s nickel-based industrial policy remains nascent, leaving opportunities unrealized in resource productivity, exposure to shifts in commodity prices and battery chemistry, and market access as destination markets adopt requirements on carbon intensity and recycled content.
This policy report examines process circularity in mining and industrial parks and product circularity in electric vehicle (EV) batteries, against technical, regulatory, and economic enabling conditions. It finds process circularity advancing while product circularity has barely begun: slag valorization generates value, but reuse beyond the generating operator’s concession requires a separate permit; filtered tailings are used in all high-pressure acid leaching (HPAL) projects, at throughputs and in conditions beyond where the technology has been proven. The report closes with a sequenced policy toolkit.
