important role by focusing on smaller, more complex orebodies that may fall outside the strategic focus of major producers. Without holistically addressing these constraints, and shifting from siloed optimization to system design, the industry will continue to fall short of what the world urgently requires. 4. FILLING THE GAP: A CALL FOR SYSTEM TRANSFORMATION With demand rising sharply and production projected to decline from 2027, the central question becomes: how do we bridge the gap? More importantly, how do we unlock more from what we already have responsibly and at speed? Closing this gap requires a shift from linear, project-by-project optimisation to system transformation across assets, regions, and value chains. Four mutually reinforcing levers stand out: 1. Build Trust: Reshape mining culture, transparency, and accountability to rebuild public and customer confidence and strengthen social licence, without which speed is impossible. 2. Unlock More from Existing Assets: Improve recovery, lower cut-off grades, reprocess tailings, and optimise flows by treating the orebody, mine, mill, and processing routes as a single system. 3. Accelerate New Development: Get projects right from the start by integrating digital twins (Sandin, M. 2025), predictive orebody modelling, smart design, and parallel, not sequential, development pathways. 4. Build the Talent Pool: Reconnect universities with industry needs, stabilise employment cycles, and create new pathways for experiential learning. Progress on any single level in isolation will be insufficient. Only system-level alignment will close the gap. 4.1. Unlocking the Value from What We Have The gap between copper demand and supply cannot be closed solely by waiting for future discoveries. It must be addressed by unlocking value already embedded in existing systems: cleaner, faster, and within reach if approached through system design rather than silo optimization. Building trust is the cornerstone of closing the gap. Limited trust between the mining industry, governments, customers and communities impacts the ability and time required to obtain the license to mine. Kemp et al., 2025, discuss social and environmental risk associated with brownfield sites to intensify production. Figure 4 reproduced from their paper illustrates the challenges the industry has on this aspect. Further complicating the challenge is the range of cultures involved from local communities to Western and Chinese investors with often limited understanding of cultural differences. 92
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