Shortfall in the supply of metals critical for transition to the low carbon economy necessitates extraction from low-grade ores and wastes. This requires new flowsheet development where the operating parameters of each unit operation must be optimized. This approach is experiment intensive with a large gestation period. To accelerate flowsheet development for sustainable metal extractionMetal extraction, a conceptual framework of Metal ExtractionMetal extraction InformaticsInformatics (MEI) has been proposed. MEI combines some aspects of material informaticsInformatics and multi-objective optimizationOptimization. Three objective functions have been used: process efficiency, operating costs, and environmental impactEnvironmental impact. A case study of the leachingLeaching of copperCopper from waste printed circuit boards has been modelled to illustrate the MEI framework.