JFI at the Indonesia Sustainability Forum in Jakarta

In October 2025, Madeline Craig-Scheckman, a fellow in JFI’s Financing the Energy Transition portfolio, attended the 2025 Indonesia Sustainability Forum in Jakarta. The Forum covered a wide range of sustainability topics, with a focus on the energy transition and the role of the mining sector.

Speakers included several key government officials, such as Rosan Perkasa Roeslani (Minister of Investment & Downstream Industry, Republic of Indonesia) and Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono (Coordinating Minister for Infrastructure & Regional Development). Additionally, several leaders in the Indonesian mining industry were present, such as the executive teams of Vale, Freeport Indonesia, and Huayou, a few of the largest mining companies in Indonesia.

Key events focused on critical minerals downstreaming, harnessing green investment, the role of mining in the electric vehicle transition, and the role of trade and industrial policy in decarbonizing the economy.

One panelist noted, “Indonesia has the minerals, now it needs the machinery of capability: technology, standards, and finance.” This highlights a key theme discussed at the conference and was paired with parallel conversations discussing the challenges of ensuring technology knowledge transfer, adhering to international mining standards, while also balancing foreign investment into the industry. Many of the conversations also focused on utilizing industrial polices to achieve such goals, especially to ensure “value-added” domestically from the growth of the mining industry.

Attending the Forum helped to advance the JFI series, Minerals-Based Industrial Policies in a Fragmenting World: Lessons from Indonesia and Australia. Conversations with ministers, regulators, and mining executives help illuminate on the ground developments in industrial policy in the mining sector in Indonesia.