Table A2 Coding tables 2° order themes...

Table A2

Coding tables

2° order themes	1° order themes	Supporting quotes and evidence
1. Strategies
Bridging	Building partnerships (downstream)	“We are not currently evaluating other supply streams (besides electronics manufacturers) as the priority is on the control of the streams [A]” “We are in deeper contacts with a big recycler here in Germany, with also a memorandum of understanding signed with them. So, we will get our material from them [D]” “We have a joint venture in Beijing with some from the Samsung group there. And there I have a board function. But we have many joint ventures there [F]” “In Europe we are searching for a strategic partner. This could be one of the OEMs. This could be an industrial partner [F]” “We have partnership with car manufacturers, to secure their supply in rare earth material. There’s a partnership with the recycling company: we give our partner the components that we don’t need (after dismantling) [G]”
	Exchanging information	“The consortium is working with technology manufacturers to investigate the actual presence of rare earth elements in their products. The availability of internal streams within a given company ensures a controlled flow of resources [A]” “We are certain that inside there is neodymium, when we have the certainty from the manufacturer. For this reason, we were confident that we could contact other producers and now we are moving in this direction [A]” “Recycling companies have access to different devices that contain a permanent magnet, but then you have to collaborate with them in order to help them to how to separate the permanent magnet [B]” “We decided to go to a bigger recycler. They have the components but currently they don't extract the magnets. They must go a step further. They just need to make an additional step in the separation of the components, and we can inform them [D]”
	Building partnerships and long-standing relationships (upstream)	“We do have very long-standing relationships, we don't change suppliers all the time. (..) For us it's really important to have a long-term supply agreement with a partner [F]” “We had to establish very close contacts with our equipment suppliers as a lot of the technology moved to China [F]” “If we want to be successful, we cannot make that on-the-spot decision. We have to think about partnership and long-term partnership (talking about suppliers) [C]”
	Vertical integration (upstream and downstream)	“For us to decouple from the Chinese set price volatility, we have no choice but to vertically integrate [E]” Case E is investing massively in order to vertically integrate, both upstream (Greenland exploration project) and downstream (magnet making plant to be launched in 2025 in Estonia; recent acquisition of a magnet maker based in UK) [company data and public news] “So, we reposition (the company) as a magnet producer, being able to produce things with our own recycled material. (the repositioning) was a game-changer because it gave us autonomy versus the Chinese supply chain [C]”
Buffering	Improving product range and quality	“Almost 100% of our products are specifically designed products, are customer specific and we don't have any off the shelf catalog magnets. The value that we provide to our customers is the quality and the variety of the products [F]” “We can value to our clients that it's green (the magnets) and (..) the quality [G]”
	Stock building	“We buy, like, everything (available) [B]” “We are buying as much as possible right now, even though we don't need it [C]”
	Recycling	“If you are a magnet maker, you recycle your own swarf, you don't need anyone else to do it. It's just part of running your business properly. You literally just take the swarf that hasn't been contaminated. You don't have to deal with it. You just throw it back to the metal making step of the process [E]” “We are doing a total recycling when we have scrap during the production [F]”
	Spot purchasing	“When they (suppliers) collect around 100 kilograms they call me and say that I can come and bring them. It's not like a real agreement [B]” “The majority is spot purchase. And the reasons why we increase the number of suppliers is basically if new market entrants come up, we are interested to check quality and prices and we start working with them [F]”
2. Strategic drivers
Institutional logic	Ecosystem perspective	“We (European Union) have to regulate more in the use of recycled material in the manufacturing of new devices. We need to restrict that export of discarded magnets (towards third countries) [B]” “I'm fighting as much as possible to keep the scraps in Europe and to avoid them in exporting [C]” “I don't think it's wise if the EU just focused on one block for the raw materials, the EU block. There are so many other sources outside in this world, that look for strategic partnerships, South America, Africa, Australia, North America. Because if we are purely dependent on the Asian metals pricing, the whole business, the entire permanent magnet economies can be tuned by this. If you have something that you can set against this, this would lead to a more robust system [F]” “(there are) good projects that look at how to disassemble magnets. I honestly can't judge if they're economical at the moment. It's maybe too early. But let's say we find a way to extract it in an economic fashion. Then it's just a hydro metallurgical route to have the metals again. So this would be definitely a strong value proposition from the European Union [F]” “We think that something as the European Battery Alliance should be a must for the European REEs industry and we had strong discussions to convince German ministeria together with heavy partners like Bosch, Siemens, Schaeffler. But it needs time to come from Berlin, to Brussels and to convince all the European partners [F]” “The short loop technology is more complementary (with us). The two business models can live together. As I mentioned, the state is giving subsidies. So we have different companies trying to launch a business on this area. So, you know, Frenchness. But we are talking with them a lot [G]”
Institutional logic	Competitive perspective	“The majority (of secondary feedstock) will be electric vehicle motors. And then the second largest category will be offshore wind turbine. The rest is certainly uneconomical to even bother thinking about. What are you going to do, extract five grams of rare earth magnet from a hard disk drive? The effort and the money that the EU puts into getting that magnet, whether it's manual, robotic or whatever, well, you'll never make back that money [E]” “If our customers build a plant in the moon, we'd go to the moon with them. That's just the nature of our business. So, if our customers are asking for supply chain geographic optionality and high ESG standards and they're building motor making facilities for electric vehicles in Europe and they want outside of China supply, well we're building our out of China magnet facility [E]” “The most important stakeholders are the customers, the suppliers, the employees, our shareholders, it's not so much the state, to be honest [F]”
Autonomy	Ability to integrate the supply chain	“Being autonomous means that we can guarantee to our customers both the sustainability (..) and the resiliency, meaning that if there are any shortages in terms of REEs, if there is any geopolitical issue with China, we can keep on producing [C]” "We can build up the complete value chain (of magnet recycling). With the expertise in the extraction of several components, with the recycling process, with the powder treatment, with the magnet manufacturing we built up the complete value chain [D]” “when it comes to price volatility control, vertical integration allows us essentially to have one contract on pricing with a final consumer, as opposed to having multiple contracts along the value chain, which have to be adjusted as the price of the underlying index of rare earth concentrate changes, that is essentially dominated by China [E]” “If you want an out-of-China supply chain, you have to adjust to the reality that you have to do things on your own [E]”
	Size	“We know how to extract the magnets. But it's too much to build it up also for the high-tech startup. We’re just a startup [D]” “We have other competitors in the United States, like a huge company. They have closed an investment round of $75 million to build like a big factory of recycling permanent magnet” Cases B and C reported the scaling in terms of tonnes per year processed of magnets as a key factor to stay in the market
	Supply chain internationalization	“With part (of the supply chain) coming from the United States, (..) we are able to ship a non-radioactive product concentrates containing rare earths to our separation facility. The reason for that is that there's no place in Europe, where you can actually get the social licence and the permits to create essentially a graveyard for radioactive waste [E]” “The first strategic step was to have unification with the American side. This is a big for us, as this opens the option to have a mine outside China and get material from non-Chinese supplier [F]”
3. Strategic levers
Supplier substitutability	Supplier diversification	“you have to work yourself on multiple sources to secure inputs because otherwise you will never know [C]” “we have to get scraps from all the different applications where you can find magnets. … That means from recycling companies, when you talk about end of life magnets, or directly from customers, in this case, this is more like production scraps [C]” “That explains the geographical optionality: that we have multiple and stable upstream deals, both in Europe and out of Europe, that we can control and oversee [E]” “(Our US supplier) isn't actually producing enough monezite sand to supply the full extent of our plant. Over the last year and a half they were supplying 30% of our plant, this amount is actually falling again. (..) The balance of it is that we get carbonate from Russia. When our mine in Greenland comes online, that will also be our feedstock and we have confidential partnerships with European recyclers [E]” “we have one supply in Europe, for example. But the majority, the main share is supplied from China. (..) the ambition is to increase Western suppliers and there aren't so many [F]” “that's our strategy right now, to diversify the sources of supply [G]”
Supplier substitutability	Number of suppliers	“It's important to do not rely on a single supplier. Every region in China has its different characteristics and we have relationships with five active suppliers in China. We think that whenever something happens this will be not the issue that all of those five will stop delivering at the same time [F]” “five (suppliers) on average. But sometimes we reduce our number of suppliers. Sometimes we increase it a little bit [F]” “we have around 4 or 5 different suppliers, and they are basically magnet manufacturers or electric motor manufacturers, or maybe companies who treat or manage industrial waste [B]”
Discretion over the resource	Institutional support	“we decided to to launch this company together with our research center. (..) almost all these companies (startups operating in REEs), are spinoffs. So they come from University Research Centers” [B] → Cases B, C and D were born as spin-off companies from university’s research centers “we developed the expertise (on magnet recycling) on our side in a (European) project and at the university in Potsdam [D]” “we needed a jurisdiction that would kind of make it a national cause for them and work with us to just get permits, get everything, including some form of government funding support [E]” “(for the radioactive permits) we need to start this whole regulatory odyssey with the government of Estonia, which will take years [E]” “I'm happy and a bit jealous of the German companies and the support that they'll be getting. It's just going a bit slower than France, but it's also the direction. There's increasingly more countries that are taking up the good cause. And it's coming together thanks to the work of other stakeholders in the industry [E]” “We receive subsidies from the French government [G]”
	Regulation	“If there is no infrastructure the waste is sent maybe to someone else who burns it or someone else elsewhere, in another country that disassembles it. We don’t know, the information is lost. But why? Because there’s no law that obliges. Because the real problem, widely discussed is that we need a law that obliges [A]” “it's not just land use permits that need to be fast tracked and included in the Critical Raw Materials Act legislation. It's a series of other permits as well, including, storage and management and acceptance of naturally occurring radioactive materials because that is the real bottleneck [E]” “the EU is very good in regulating stuff. And if the EU regulates that it's mandatory to recycle the magnets then there will be a waste stream that just flows in [F]”
	Social licence to operate	“In that way (REE carbonate) we are able to ship a non-radioactive product to our separation facility. The reason for that is there's no place in Europe that we can actually get the social licence and the permits to create a graveyard for radioactive wastes [E]” Case E declares the establishment of a USA–Europe supply chain for radioactive-free REEs carbonate as a real gamechanger for European customer base, as it fills a regulatory gap in Europe and it contributes to meet growing demand in Europe for these materials [press release]
	Geopolitical risk	“you're losing the stock of materials because you already buy it from China, because the primary sources are all coming from there. And then you lose it again in this way, because if you do not recycle it will go to China (the secondary source) [C]” “the disadvantage compared to Chinese or US manufacturers is 30% (in terms of cost of magnets) [D]” “at the beginning of all, we have a disadvantage of approximately 20, 22, 23% on the raw material (compared to Chinese) [F]”
	Technological competence	“we have also the characterization tools, in order to know the composition and the magnetic performance of the scraps. It makes a big difference, now we are able to recognize it [C]” “The reality is that there isn't much rare earth talent outside of China. The few is in Estonia [E]” “We want to highlight the competences of our experts, and the high technology we put in our process to make sure we are competitive and green. They have a special competency on the separation of rare earth [G]” “it's not uncommon that we have people that have been with us for 20 or 30 years. In the R&D division (we have) trained people. We have several PhDs in their respective fields, but also well trained technical [F]” “We have a great experience and we have a great way to produce the magnets [F]” “we have a complete access to the IP (intellectual property). We have full access to the hydrogen processing of magnet scrap patent [D]” “We have four patents, on this project (magnet separation) [G]”
	Sustainability	“main strength is our process. Definitely. It's I think the most green way to recycle end of life magnet [D]” “ESG informed the selection of the Greenland opportunity (i.e. exploration and mining facility) as energy will come from hydro, a port will be made and everything will be shipped by boat [E]” “(we aim) to have a low environmental footprint. So we had like a series of studies to reduce carbon emissions, recycling also CO2, because we have emission of CO2 during the process, but we use also CO2 during the process. So there is a recycling of CO2 during the process. And regarding water consumption we almost don't have water consumption [G]”
Importance of the resource	Price volatility	“It's not just to get the materials, it's also that the prices are not defined. There's not a market (for scraps) and a value that works for us and for them (suppliers) [D]” “when it comes to price volatility control, vertical integration allows us to have (only) one contract with the final consumer, … to decouple from Chinese-set price volatility [E]” “the buying behavior needed to be modified a lot, because if the price volatility is not so high, the time of purchase is not critical. But if you have a spike, then there needs to be a lot of checking of prices [F]”
	Supply chain proximity	“There were cost synergies by doing it practically next to our separation facility in Estonia [E]” “Transportation is very expensive. So having like a supplier close to our company it's better because of transportation cost. You know we are buying like waste, two euros per kilogram or less. So it's a very low price in comparison with transport cost [B]” “To assess suppliers, the (important) metric is location basically [B]”
	Cost and complexity of the production process	“there is a critical issue related to the upstream supply chain, which means both the interception and collection of WEEE waste, … and its management …, including the disassembly of the waste, separation, and directing the components towards the best environmental and economic recovery [A]” “(dismantling) is a complexity where however the value is captured on small quantities, because the quantities of the individual components are small quantities [A]” “When you contact manufacturers using permanent magnets what they can give you is big bunch of stuff magnetized and you don't know exactly which is the composition [G]” “the problem is that permanent magnets now are not being recovered and they go with steel parts and end in foundries; (another) problem is that is very difficult to separate permanent magnets from EoL devices [B]”
	Availability of supply material (primary and secondary)	“The upstream supply chain is critical: one of the success factors of the project is certainly linked to the continuity of incoming waste streams for recycling. Currently, the level of control over secondary material streams is low [A]” “having access to raw materials is very difficult and it's very expensive [B]” “There's no continuous flow, they (suppliers) don't know when they're going to have materials [B]” “most critical is to get the scrap. … currently we don't know exactly what scrap sources we will get. There are also different qualities of end of life magnets [D]” “(Supplying of secondary materials) is one of the most difficult things in our business model because first there is no market for scrap magnets and you have to look for different suppliers [B]” “there were really times that were extremely challenging with regard to find the material, a lot of uncertainty in the market”. [F] “we all know that we don't have enough secondary material so far on the markets [G]”

2° order themes	1° order themes	Supporting quotes and evidence
1. Strategies
Bridging	Building partnerships (downstream)	“We are not currently evaluating other supply streams (besides electronics manufacturers) as the priority is on the control of the streams [A]”“We are in deeper contacts with a big recycler here in Germany, with also a memorandum of understanding signed with them. So, we will get our material from them [D]”“We have a joint venture in Beijing with some from the Samsung group there. And there I have a board function. But we have many joint ventures there [F]”“In Europe we are searching for a strategic partner. This could be one of the OEMs. This could be an industrial partner [F]”“We have partnership with car manufacturers, to secure their supply in rare earth material. There’s a partnership with the recycling company: we give our partner the components that we don’t need (after dismantling) [G]”
	Exchanging information	“The consortium is working with technology manufacturers to investigate the actual presence of rare earth elements in their products. The availability of internal streams within a given company ensures a controlled flow of resources [A]”“We are certain that inside there is neodymium, when we have the certainty from the manufacturer. For this reason, we were confident that we could contact other producers and now we are moving in this direction [A]”“Recycling companies have access to different devices that contain a permanent magnet, but then you have to collaborate with them in order to help them to how to separate the permanent magnet [B]”“We decided to go to a bigger recycler. They have the components but currently they don't extract the magnets. They must go a step further. They just need to make an additional step in the separation of the components, and we can inform them [D]”
	Building partnerships and long-standing relationships (upstream)	“We do have very long-standing relationships, we don't change suppliers all the time. (..) For us it's really important to have a long-term supply agreement with a partner [F]”“We had to establish very close contacts with our equipment suppliers as a lot of the technology moved to China [F]”“If we want to be successful, we cannot make that on-the-spot decision. We have to think about partnership and long-term partnership (talking about suppliers) [C]”
	Vertical integration (upstream and downstream)	“For us to decouple from the Chinese set price volatility, we have no choice but to vertically integrate [E]”Case E is investing massively in order to vertically integrate, both upstream (Greenland exploration project) and downstream (magnet making plant to be launched in 2025 in Estonia; recent acquisition of a magnet maker based in UK) [company data and public news]“So, we reposition (the company) as a magnet producer, being able to produce things with our own recycled material. (the repositioning) was a game-changer because it gave us autonomy versus the Chinese supply chain [C]”
Buffering	Improving product range and quality	“Almost 100% of our products are specifically designed products, are customer specific and we don't have any off the shelf catalog magnets. The value that we provide to our customers is the quality and the variety of the products [F]”“We can value to our clients that it's green (the magnets) and (..) the quality [G]”
	Stock building	“We buy, like, everything (available) [B]”“We are buying as much as possible right now, even though we don't need it [C]”
	Recycling	“If you are a magnet maker, you recycle your own swarf, you don't need anyone else to do it. It's just part of running your business properly. You literally just take the swarf that hasn't been contaminated. You don't have to deal with it. You just throw it back to the metal making step of the process [E]”“We are doing a total recycling when we have scrap during the production [F]”
	Spot purchasing	“When they (suppliers) collect around 100 kilograms they call me and say that I can come and bring them. It's not like a real agreement [B]”“The majority is spot purchase. And the reasons why we increase the number of suppliers is basically if new market entrants come up, we are interested to check quality and prices and we start working with them [F]”
2. Strategic drivers
Institutional logic	Ecosystem perspective	“We (European Union) have to regulate more in the use of recycled material in the manufacturing of new devices. We need to restrict that export of discarded magnets (towards third countries) [B]”“I'm fighting as much as possible to keep the scraps in Europe and to avoid them in exporting [C]”“I don't think it's wise if the EU just focused on one block for the raw materials, the EU block. There are so many other sources outside in this world, that look for strategic partnerships, South America, Africa, Australia, North America. Because if we are purely dependent on the Asian metals pricing, the whole business, the entire permanent magnet economies can be tuned by this. If you have something that you can set against this, this would lead to a more robust system [F]”“(there are) good projects that look at how to disassemble magnets. I honestly can't judge if they're economical at the moment. It's maybe too early. But let's say we find a way to extract it in an economic fashion. Then it's just a hydro metallurgical route to have the metals again. So this would be definitely a strong value proposition from the European Union [F]”“We think that something as the European Battery Alliance should be a must for the European REEs industry and we had strong discussions to convince German ministeria together with heavy partners like Bosch, Siemens, Schaeffler. But it needs time to come from Berlin, to Brussels and to convince all the European partners [F]”“The short loop technology is more complementary (with us). The two business models can live together. As I mentioned, the state is giving subsidies. So we have different companies trying to launch a business on this area. So, you know, Frenchness. But we are talking with them a lot [G]”
Institutional logic	Competitive perspective	“The majority (of secondary feedstock) will be electric vehicle motors. And then the second largest category will be offshore wind turbine. The rest is certainly uneconomical to even bother thinking about. What are you going to do, extract five grams of rare earth magnet from a hard disk drive? The effort and the money that the EU puts into getting that magnet, whether it's manual, robotic or whatever, well, you'll never make back that money [E]”“If our customers build a plant in the moon, we'd go to the moon with them. That's just the nature of our business. So, if our customers are asking for supply chain geographic optionality and high ESG standards and they're building motor making facilities for electric vehicles in Europe and they want outside of China supply, well we're building our out of China magnet facility [E]”“The most important stakeholders are the customers, the suppliers, the employees, our shareholders, it's not so much the state, to be honest [F]”
Autonomy	Ability to integrate the supply chain	“Being autonomous means that we can guarantee to our customers both the sustainability (..) and the resiliency, meaning that if there are any shortages in terms of REEs, if there is any geopolitical issue with China, we can keep on producing [C]”"We can build up the complete value chain (of magnet recycling). With the expertise in the extraction of several components, with the recycling process, with the powder treatment, with the magnet manufacturing we built up the complete value chain [D]”“when it comes to price volatility control, vertical integration allows us essentially to have one contract on pricing with a final consumer, as opposed to having multiple contracts along the value chain, which have to be adjusted as the price of the underlying index of rare earth concentrate changes, that is essentially dominated by China [E]”“If you want an out-of-China supply chain, you have to adjust to the reality that you have to do things on your own [E]”
	Size	“We know how to extract the magnets. But it's too much to build it up also for the high-tech startup. We’re just a startup [D]”“We have other competitors in the United States, like a huge company. They have closed an investment round of $75 million to build like a big factory of recycling permanent magnet”Cases B and C reported the scaling in terms of tonnes per year processed of magnets as a key factor to stay in the market
	Supply chain internationalization	“With part (of the supply chain) coming from the United States, (..) we are able to ship a non-radioactive product concentrates containing rare earths to our separation facility. The reason for that is that there's no place in Europe, where you can actually get the social licence and the permits to create essentially a graveyard for radioactive waste [E]”“The first strategic step was to have unification with the American side. This is a big for us, as this opens the option to have a mine outside China and get material from non-Chinese supplier [F]”
3. Strategic levers
Supplier substitutability	Supplier diversification	“you have to work yourself on multiple sources to secure inputs because otherwise you will never know [C]”“we have to get scraps from all the different applications where you can find magnets. … That means from recycling companies, when you talk about end of life magnets, or directly from customers, in this case, this is more like production scraps [C]”“That explains the geographical optionality: that we have multiple and stable upstream deals, both in Europe and out of Europe, that we can control and oversee [E]”“(Our US supplier) isn't actually producing enough monezite sand to supply the full extent of our plant. Over the last year and a half they were supplying 30% of our plant, this amount is actually falling again. (..) The balance of it is that we get carbonate from Russia. When our mine in Greenland comes online, that will also be our feedstock and we have confidential partnerships with European recyclers [E]”“we have one supply in Europe, for example. But the majority, the main share is supplied from China. (..) the ambition is to increase Western suppliers and there aren't so many [F]”“that's our strategy right now, to diversify the sources of supply [G]”
Supplier substitutability	Number of suppliers	“It's important to do not rely on a single supplier. Every region in China has its different characteristics and we have relationships with five active suppliers in China. We think that whenever something happens this will be not the issue that all of those five will stop delivering at the same time [F]”“five (suppliers) on average. But sometimes we reduce our number of suppliers. Sometimes we increase it a little bit [F]”“we have around 4 or 5 different suppliers, and they are basically magnet manufacturers or electric motor manufacturers, or maybe companies who treat or manage industrial waste [B]”
Discretion over the resource	Institutional support	“we decided to to launch this company together with our research center. (..) almost all these companies (startups operating in REEs), are spinoffs. So they come from University Research Centers” [B] → Cases B, C and D were born as spin-off companies from university’s research centers“we developed the expertise (on magnet recycling) on our side in a (European) project and at the university in Potsdam [D]”“we needed a jurisdiction that would kind of make it a national cause for them and work with us to just get permits, get everything, including some form of government funding support [E]”“(for the radioactive permits) we need to start this whole regulatory odyssey with the government of Estonia, which will take years [E]”“I'm happy and a bit jealous of the German companies and the support that they'll be getting. It's just going a bit slower than France, but it's also the direction. There's increasingly more countries that are taking up the good cause. And it's coming together thanks to the work of other stakeholders in the industry [E]”“We receive subsidies from the French government [G]”
	Regulation	“If there is no infrastructure the waste is sent maybe to someone else who burns it or someone else elsewhere, in another country that disassembles it. We don’t know, the information is lost. But why? Because there’s no law that obliges. Because the real problem, widely discussed is that we need a law that obliges [A]”“it's not just land use permits that need to be fast tracked and included in the Critical Raw Materials Act legislation. It's a series of other permits as well, including, storage and management and acceptance of naturally occurring radioactive materials because that is the real bottleneck [E]”“the EU is very good in regulating stuff. And if the EU regulates that it's mandatory to recycle the magnets then there will be a waste stream that just flows in [F]”
	Social licence to operate	“In that way (REE carbonate) we are able to ship a non-radioactive product to our separation facility. The reason for that is there's no place in Europe that we can actually get the social licence and the permits to create a graveyard for radioactive wastes [E]”Case E declares the establishment of a USA–Europe supply chain for radioactive-free REEs carbonate as a real gamechanger for European customer base, as it fills a regulatory gap in Europe and it contributes to meet growing demand in Europe for these materials [press release]
	Geopolitical risk	“you're losing the stock of materials because you already buy it from China, because the primary sources are all coming from there. And then you lose it again in this way, because if you do not recycle it will go to China (the secondary source) [C]”“the disadvantage compared to Chinese or US manufacturers is 30% (in terms of cost of magnets) [D]”“at the beginning of all, we have a disadvantage of approximately 20, 22, 23% on the raw material (compared to Chinese) [F]”
	Technological competence	“we have also the characterization tools, in order to know the composition and the magnetic performance of the scraps. It makes a big difference, now we are able to recognize it [C]”“The reality is that there isn't much rare earth talent outside of China. The few is in Estonia [E]”“We want to highlight the competences of our experts, and the high technology we put in our process to make sure we are competitive and green. They have a special competency on the separation of rare earth [G]”“it's not uncommon that we have people that have been with us for 20 or 30 years. In the R&D division (we have) trained people. We have several PhDs in their respective fields, but also well trained technical [F]”“We have a great experience and we have a great way to produce the magnets [F]”“we have a complete access to the IP (intellectual property). We have full access to the hydrogen processing of magnet scrap patent [D]”“We have four patents, on this project (magnet separation) [G]”
	Sustainability	“main strength is our process. Definitely. It's I think the most green way to recycle end of life magnet [D]”“ESG informed the selection of the Greenland opportunity (i.e. exploration and mining facility) as energy will come from hydro, a port will be made and everything will be shipped by boat [E]”“(we aim) to have a low environmental footprint. So we had like a series of studies to reduce carbon emissions, recycling also CO2, because we have emission of CO2 during the process, but we use also CO2 during the process. So there is a recycling of CO2 during the process. And regarding water consumption we almost don't have water consumption [G]”
Importance of the resource	Price volatility	“It's not just to get the materials, it's also that the prices are not defined. There's not a market (for scraps) and a value that works for us and for them (suppliers) [D]”“when it comes to price volatility control, vertical integration allows us to have (only) one contract with the final consumer, … to decouple from Chinese-set price volatility [E]”“the buying behavior needed to be modified a lot, because if the price volatility is not so high, the time of purchase is not critical. But if you have a spike, then there needs to be a lot of checking of prices [F]”
	Supply chain proximity	“There were cost synergies by doing it practically next to our separation facility in Estonia [E]”“Transportation is very expensive. So having like a supplier close to our company it's better because of transportation cost. You know we are buying like waste, two euros per kilogram or less. So it's a very low price in comparison with transport cost [B]”“To assess suppliers, the (important) metric is location basically [B]”
	Cost and complexity of the production process	“there is a critical issue related to the upstream supply chain, which means both the interception and collection of WEEE waste, … and its management …, including the disassembly of the waste, separation, and directing the components towards the best environmental and economic recovery [A]”“(dismantling) is a complexity where however the value is captured on small quantities, because the quantities of the individual components are small quantities [A]”“When you contact manufacturers using permanent magnets what they can give you is big bunch of stuff magnetized and you don't know exactly which is the composition [G]”“the problem is that permanent magnets now are not being recovered and they go with steel parts and end in foundries; (another) problem is that is very difficult to separate permanent magnets from EoL devices [B]”
	Availability of supply material (primary and secondary)	“The upstream supply chain is critical: one of the success factors of the project is certainly linked to the continuity of incoming waste streams for recycling. Currently, the level of control over secondary material streams is low [A]”“having access to raw materials is very difficult and it's very expensive [B]”“There's no continuous flow, they (suppliers) don't know when they're going to have materials [B]”“most critical is to get the scrap. … currently we don't know exactly what scrap sources we will get. There are also different qualities of end of life magnets [D]”“(Supplying of secondary materials) is one of the most difficult things in our business model because first there is no market for scrap magnets and you have to look for different suppliers [B]”“there were really times that were extremely challenging with regard to find the material, a lot of uncertainty in the market”. [F]“we all know that we don't have enough secondary material so far on the markets [G]”

Source(s): Authors’ own work

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