Transport for London has released an updated Corporate Environment Plan detailing more than 70 actions to cut operational and embodied carbon and improve network resilience to extreme weather across the Underground, bus and road systems. Measures include accelerating fleet electrification, retrofitting stations and depots for energy efficiency, and upgrading drainage and track assets to cope with more intense rainfall and heat events. Civil and geotechnical engineers can expect tighter carbon requirements in design, materials selection and asset renewal, alongside higher design thresholds for flooding, overheating and slope stability.

Brazil’s newly approved Bill No. 2,780/2024 creates the National Policy on Critical and Strategic Minerals (PNMCE), establishing a CIMCE council of up to 20 members to classify minerals, prioritise projects and oversee transactions involving changes of control, foreign “significant influence”, strategic geological data access and sensitive offtake contracts. Exploration licences for critical/strategic minerals face an absolute 10‑year term with no extensions or tolling except for environmental licensing, raising timing risk where deposits are complex or critical minerals are identified mid‑programme. To offset tighter oversight, the bill enables a BRL 2 billion Mineral Activity Guarantee Fund funded by a 0.2% revenue levy, mandates 0.3–0.5% R&D spend, and offers CSLL tax credits capped at BRL 1 billion per year (2030–2034) for domestic processing investments.

Better traceability of critical minerals such as lithium and nickel is needed to manage operational and governance risks in complex supply chains, with the OECD report flagging fragmented company-level systems, low adoption by miners, and opaque transnational ownership structures in Indonesian and Philippine nickel. Case studies of lithium from Argentina and Chile show heavy dependence on Chinese processing and major data gaps, limiting visibility on foreign upstream ownership despite existing tools like SIMBARA, LME responsible-sourcing rules and local audits. The OECD proposes a phased, risk-based approach: short-term use of current supplier mapping and bilateral mineral agreements, medium-term closure of data gaps via traders, exchanges and smelters, and long-term cross-border data sharing and aligned battery standards through platforms such as the G7 Critical Minerals Action Plan, FORGE and RESourceEU.