As the world accelerates toward electrification and digital transformation, copper remains at the heart of the transition. According to the Global Materials Perspective 2025, copper remains one of the commodities most exposed to geopolitical risk, concentrated supply, and slower-than-expected progress in the energy transition.

While demand is projected to grow steadily through to 2035, supply ramp-up is lagging, with mining output still geographically concentrated and facing rising capital, energy, and permitting pressures. Yet for all its importance, the global copper supply chain still lacks a framework, to which global adherence is comprehensive, to ensure that the minerals driving the green economy are sourced transparently, ethically, and sustainably.

That gap is now being filled, not from Geneva or Washington, but from Riyadh and the African Copperbelt. The Future Minerals Forum (FMF), organized by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources, has catalyzed a first-of-its-kind initiative: a project submitted to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for developing an international traceability standard for copper covering the mined ore to the purified metal. FMF’s objective is to advance the development of an international traceability standard for copper that reflects the growing need for a globally recognized and harmonized approach to responsible sourcing. The intention is to provide a common reference framework that can complement and interconnect existing systems such as the UN Transparency Protocol, the Copper Mark, and other performance standards.

Copper’s strategic importance for the energy transition offers a unique opportunity to demonstrate the feasibility and value of a standardized traceability framework that could later serve as a model for other commodities. Importantly, the ISO process provides an inclusive, consensus-driven platform where diverse voices – particularly from the “Super Region” and other supplier regions – can contribute meaningfully to shaping global norms. The project represents a shift in global governance that turns supplier nations from rule takers into rule shapers. The Africa Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG) formed at the FMF in 2024, is one of the leading contributors to the project consisting of 16 mineral producing countries and growing.

Stretching across Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the African Copperbelt produces more than two-thirds of the continent’s copper. The new ISO standard, reflecting FMF’s four Sustainability Framework pillars of Development, Capacity, Collaboration, and Performance, will set clear expectations for enhancing supply chain transparency by tracking copper from artisanal and large-scale mines to refineries.

It aims to bring transparency, accountability, and investor confidence to this strategic mineral corridors.

“Producer countries will be able to bring their expertise to develop a framework that reflects their local realities, governance systems, and development priorities, contributing to align international expectations around ethical sourcing and due diligence,”  says Mercè Ferrés Hernández, Technical programme manager at ISO. 

“The copper traceability project is a tangible example of FMF’s mission to turn dialogue into outcomes. Conceived during the 2025 Ministerial Roundtable, the initiative draws on contributions from governments, mining companies, development banks, and global organizations including the OECD, ICMM, and the UN. As the world’s leading platform for shaping the future of minerals, FMF creates the space for multistakeholder engagement to ensure the right conversations happen at the right time, in the right place, with the right people,” says Ali Al-Mutairi, Executive Director of FMF.

Rather than imposing one universal compliance bar, the framework introduces a maturity model, allowing countries and companies to progress through traceability levels as their capacity grows. This developmental approach makes the standard a tool for progress rather than a barrier to market access.

“Without Africa’s critical minerals, there can be no energy transition, no digital transformation, and no resilient global economy. Yet for decades, Africa’s mineral wealth has too often been defined by others,” says H.E. Moses Micheal Engadu, the founding Secretary General of the Africa Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG). “Through this partnership, we’re setting our own benchmarks rooted in African realities, aligned with global expectations, and designed to ensure that responsible production and fair trade become the norm, not the exception.”

Since its launch in 2022, the Future Minerals Forum has become a global platform where conversation meets execution. Endorsed by 89 governments and dozens of multilateral institutions, FMF’s annual Ministerial Roundtable is now the only venue where supplier and consumer nations jointly define mineral priorities.

This year’s theme, Dawn of a Global Cause: Minerals for a New Age of Development, encapsulates FMF’s evolution from a high-level conference into a driver of real-world outcomes through collaboration, including a network of Centers of Excellence for capacity building with hubs in Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa; to a partnership with BMO, the world’s leading financier of mining to drive investment in mineral supply.

The ISO traceability standard is among the first initiatives to emerge directly from the Forum’s sustainability framework, and it’s already being positioned as a possible model for replication across other critical minerals such as lithium and cobalt.

Beyond the Copperbelt, the project carries geopolitical significance. It represents a rebalancing of power in the global minerals ecosystem, where developing regions not only supply resources but also co-define the principles that govern them.

In doing so, FMF is crafting a new model of multilateralism, one that moves past compliance toward co-creation. This aligns closely with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which identifies mining as the Kingdom’s third pillar of economic growth and positions Riyadh as the natural convening point between Africa, Asia, and Europe.

For investors and end-users alike, this means greater visibility into the origin of their materials, and a pathway to meet performance expectations on responsible supply.

The proposed copper traceability standard – now entering ISO’s approval phase, with the ballot closing at the end of February 2026 – has enormous potential impact. It could become the common blueprint for how minerals from developing economies are certified, traded, and valued.

“From Riyadh to the Copperbelt, FMF is building the architecture of trust for a new minerals era, where producing regions shape the standards that will guide global development,” says Al-Mutairi.