Battery Passport

The Battery Passport

 

In 2019 the Global Battery Alliance (GBA) published ‘A vision for a sustainable battery value chain 2030’ outlining the need to rapidly scale sustainable, responsible, and circular battery value chains as a major driver to meet the Paris Agreement targets. The updated report ‘Battery 2030: Resilient, sustainable and circular’ in collaboration with McKinsey, highlights staggering growth forecasts, projecting that the entire lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery chain, from mining through recycling, could grow by over 30 percent annually from 2022 to 2030, when it would reach a value of more than $400 billion and a market size of 4.7 TWh. To manage the rapidly growing industry's environmental, social, and governance impacts, transparency and collective multistakeholder are vitally important. With that in mind, the GBA conceptualized the Battery Passport as a framework to increase transparency across the battery value chain.

The battery passport establishes a digital twin of the physical battery that conveys information about all applicable sustainability and lifecycle requirements based on a comprehensive definition of a sustainable battery. It aims to bring new levels of transparency to the global battery value chain by collecting, exchanging, collating, and reporting trusted data among all lifecycle stakeholders on the material provenance, the battery’s chemical make-up and manufacturing history, and its sustainability performance.

The GBA’s Battery Passport is unique as it is a key instrument for implementing a global vision of sustainable, responsible, and circular battery value chains based on data that is standardized, comparable, and auditable. Its ultimate goal is to provide end-users with a quality seal based on the battery’s sustainability performance, according to reporting rules agreed upon by stakeholders from industry, academia, non-governmental organisations and government. The GBA believes that highly globalized battery value chains demand a truly global multi-stakeholder approach to help collectively shape the battery passport instrument. To design a fully scalable and global battery passport infrastructure requires an ecosystem approach connecting and engaging businesses, IT solution providers, regulators, auditors, public, and international and non-governmental organizations. The vision for this ecosystem and the roadmap to build were captured by the GBA in 2020.

 

Once completed, the Battery Passport program will consist of the following: 

• A global reporting framework to govern rules around measurement, auditing, and reporting of ESG parameters across the battery value chain. 
• A digital ID for batteries containing data and descriptions about the ESG performance, manufacturing history, and provenance as well as advancing battery life extension and enabling recycling.
• Harmonizing of digital systems collaborating across the value chain to report data into the battery passport. 
• A digital platform that will collect, exchange, collate and report data among all authorized lifecycle stakeholders to advance a sustainable value chain for electric vehicles (EV) and stationary batteries. It will transparently report progress toward global goals along the battery value chain to inform policymaking for governments, the civil society and develop performance benchmarks. 
• An ESG score for batteries (based on the data reported into the platform) to facilitate responsible consumer purchasing. 

 

The Battery Passport will enable the following outcomes: 

• Provide transparency in practices and the impact of the battery along the value chain to all relevant stakeholders in the battery value chain 
• Create a framework for benchmarking batteries along criteria by identifying those that are best and worst in class and providing minimum acceptable standards for a sustainable and responsible battery 
• Validate and track progress toward sustainable, responsible, and resource-efficient batteries. 

Read more in the 2024 Battery Passport brochure

Download Brochure

 

Battery Passport pilots

The GBA has conducted two rounds of pilots to demonstrate the feasibility, trial the implementation, and collect feedback from battery value chain companies and stakeholders, on the Battery Passport concept:

In 2023, to demonstrate the practical feasibility of the battery passport, the GBA mobilized its members, covering the entire value chain from mine to the vehicle manufacturer, to jointly establish a proof of concept. In addition to reporting the technical parameters of the battery, this included the tracking and tracing of materials flows for three value chains led by two of leading electric vehicle OEMs, integrated with consistent reporting against the GBA’s Greenhouse Gas rulebook to establish the battery carbon footprint and the Child Labour and Human Rights Indices. The launch of the world’s first battery passport proof-of-concept presents an important milestone demonstrating that our vision is feasible, but it is only the beginning of the battery passport journey. The pilot paper outlines how the pilots were configured, the learnings obtained during pilot implementation, and an outlook for the next steps. See more about the 2023 pilots.

In 2024, building and significantly expanding on the 2023 pilots, 10 consortia led by the world’s leading battery cell manufacturers mobilised their end-to-end value chains, including recyclers, to trial collecting real-life sustainability data, elaborate the ESG scoring methodology, and test data verification. The leading cell manufacturers together account for over 80% of global electric vehicle battery market share, making this the largest pre-competitive effort to establish harmonised battery passports and a major milestone towards delivering the Battery Passport vision. The consortia worked with seven digital solution providers to determine provenance and flow of six materials - lithium, graphite (artificial), aluminium, cobalt, copper and iron phosphate, and collect sustainability data across seven rulebooks were developed through a multistakeholder process by the GBA, covering Greenhouse Gas emissions; Environmental and Human Rights Due Diligence; Forced Labour; Child Labour; Biodiversity; Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Circular Design. The rulebooks define baseline expectations in line with the upcoming EU Batteries Regulation and beyond, as well as leading practices to help guide company efforts in addressing risks and sustainability impacts within their supply chains. See more about the 2024 pilots.

 

Governance

The Battery Passport Action Partnership is governed by a Steering Committee. It guides strategic decision-making made up of GBA members representing a balance of industry, civil society, governments, and academia.

 Battery Passport Steering Committee:

• Rosalie Seppelt, GIZ
• Annukka Santasalo-Aarnio, Aalto University
• Julia Naime, Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN)
• Aditya Ramji, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California Davis
• Wouter Ghyoot, Umicore
• Ilse Schoeters, Glencore
• Uwe Seidel, VDI/VDE
• Gillian Davidson, Eurasian Resources Group
• Jonathan Heybrock, Green Finance Institute
• Nahn Ju Kim, LG Chem
• Hermann Josef Feise, BASF
• XiaoGuan(Yuki) Wang, CATL
• Xiao Lin, Botree
• Byron Cheng, Tesla
• Farid Fernandez, Responsible Mica Initiative
• Vishant Kothari, WRI
• Diep Nguyen-van Houtte, International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group)