GBA launches world’s first Battery Passport proof of concept

The Battery Passport is key to facilitating the rapid scaling of sustainable, circular, and responsible battery value chains to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement through electrification of the transport and power sectors. It has been developed over three years by the GBA’s members, who span the global battery value chain from the mine to recycling, including: Audi, BASF, CATL, Eurasian Resources Group, Glencore, LG Energy Solution, Umicore, Tesla, Volkswagen AG, and IT solution providers. This is in addition to leading non-governmental and international organisations, including IndustriALL Global Union, Pact, Transport & Environment, UNEP, UNICEF and many others, with the support of government institutions like the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and Natural Resources Canada.

Batteries are the key to unlocking the energy transition. At the same time, batteries are material and resource-intensive with inevitable social and environmental impacts throughout the value chain. This includes greenhouse gas emissions during material sourcing, processing, and manufacturing of batteries and issues of child labour and human rights violations. Bringing transparency to battery value chains through the introduction of the battery passport is a critical step towards establishing sustainable battery value chains in a rapidly growing industry.

The Battery Passport is the GBA’s flagship initiative, establishing a digital twin of a physical battery that conveys information about all applicable sustainability and lifecycle requirements based on a comprehensive definition of a sustainable battery. It will 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 to implement a global vision of sustainable, responsible and circular battery value chains, based on data that is standardised, 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 by stakeholders from industry, academia, non-governmental organisations, and government.

For the first time, the GBA has unveiled the illustrative results of its Battery Passport proof of concept at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos. Publicly available on the Global Battery Alliance’s website, the prototype battery passports include example data from Audi and Tesla and their value chains partners relating to the battery’s technical specifications, material provenance, and reporting against key sustainability performance indicators. This includes partial reporting of the battery’s carbon footprint, and child labour and human rights performance, according to rulebooks developed by members of the Global Battery Alliance for select materials, as well as information on the data collection across different steps of the value chains. By establishing this proof of concept, the Global Battery Alliance and its members are demonstrating how, by putting this data in the hands of end-users, the Passport will enable customers to make more informed purchasing decisions and drive sustainable sourcing, processing, and manufacturing practices in the industry in the future.

Building on the efforts of the Global Battery Alliance, the concept of a Battery Passport has already been endorsed at the 2021 G7 Leaders’ Meeting, in the EU Battery Regulation, and by the Canadian and US administrations. A Battery Passport will become a mandatory requirement in the EU by 2026 with other regions likely to follow, which makes the launch of the GBA’s Battery Passport more important than ever to provide a globally harmonised framework for sustainability performance in the future.

Following the successful launch of the proof of concept, the GBA will continue evolving the battery passport architecture, including the development of a comprehensive and streamlined indicator framework. The members of the GBA will work jointly on developing rules and mechanisms for performance scoring, data governance, assurance and verification, including of IT instruments. Once completed, this will allow for batteries to be benchmarked against the GBA’s verifiable definition of a sustainable and responsible battery in the future, identifying those that are best and worst in class and tracking progress in the industry through the issuance of a GBA quality seal for batteries.

Dr. Robert Habeck, German Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, comments:

“The Battery Passport proof of concept presented today is a very impressive first tangible result of the GBA, which my ministry has been supporting since 2019. The Battery Passport is a pivotal embodiment of the digital and green ‘twin transition’ – it utilises the digital world to facilitate the decarbonisation of the real world and to promote circularity. We believe that global progress in green technologies is most efficient when we rely on globally compatible standards and a level playing field to minimise frictions between different markets in the industries we need to transform. Therefore, GBA’s work as an international actor is so important.”

Benedikt Sobotka, Co-Chair of the Global Battery Alliance and CEO of Eurasian Resources Group, founding member of the GBA, said:

“The launch of the Battery Passport proof of concept is a major milestone on the road to creating a truly verifiable digital twin of a battery. The GBA’s Battery Passport is the first and only passport to be developed by stakeholders spanning the entire battery value chain, making it the standard bearer for battery transparency. Our attention will now turn to benchmarking Battery Passport data and issuing quality seals based on sustainability performance to provide a trusted source of data to end consumers, guiding purchasing decisions and triggering improvement actions across the value chain.”

Ferdinand Maubrey, Head of Responsible Sourcing, Battery Supply Chain & Battery Minerals, Tesla, said:

“Tesla piloted the Battery Passport and collected the relevant environmental and social data points on our cobalt supply chain. While a lot more work needs to be done to cover all relevant areas across battery mineral supply chains, standard reporting across a level playing field certainly has a role to play in the transition towards sustainable energy.”

Julia Poliscanova, T&E’s senior director for e-mobility, said:

“Batteries are the new oil, but to avoid the mistakes of the oil age we must ensure batteries are produced sustainably, their materials sourced responsibly, and the entire supply chain is circular. Transport & Environment has supported GBA’s work from the outset to cement sustainability and responsible sourcing into the global battery industry. The launch of the Battery Passport marks a key milestone on that journey. It will enable transparent disclosure of key sustainability and human rights data, thus improving transparency and trust across the supply chain.”

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/environment-sustainability/19012023/gba-launches-worlds-first-battery-passport-proof-of-concept/