The transport sector is responsible for more than 20% of Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions. Battery electric vehicles and E-fuels are two prominent technological paths to decarbonise the transport sector. These technologies require 40 key materials for which Germany is entirely dependent on imports. The aim of this study is to understand the relative geopolitical supply risks for Germany for the 40 materials and to develop a Geopolitical Supply Risk Index (GSRI), taking into account all stages of the value chain.

We assess geopolitical supply risk along two dimensions: concentration of supply and political risk in supplying countries. However, unlike the existing literature, we measure ‘supply’ using all indicators, which include exporting countries to Germany, producing countries, and countries with reserves. The results of the study show that the relative risks differ significantly depending on which indicator is used to measure supply. We develop a framework for combining the risk information from all three indicators. This provides a more comprehensive and multi-dimensional assessment of the risks, their nature and their source. The relative risk ranking is then used to recommend policy strategies for Germany, differentiated for each material group and reflecting the type, nature, and severity of the risks.