World’s first battery passport proof of concept launched at WEF

The Global Battery Alliance (GBA), aiming to establish a sustainable battery value chain by 2030, has launched the proof of concept for its Battery Passport at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos.

Publicly available on the GBA’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, GBA said in a media statement.

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, GBA said.

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 as well as leading non-governmental and international organisations including IndustriALL Global Union, Pact, Transport & Environment, UNEP, UNICEF and others, with the support of government institutions like the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and Natural Resources Canada.

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 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.

“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,” Dr. Robert Habeck, German Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, said in a media statement.

“We believe that global progress in green technologies is most efficient when we rely on globally compatible standards and a level playing field to minimize frictions between different markets in the industries we need to transform,” Habeck said.

“Tesla piloted the Battery Passport and collected the relevant environmental and social data points on our cobalt supply chain,” said Ferdinand Maubrey, Tesla’s Head of Responsible Sourcing, Battery Supply Chain & Battery Minerals.

“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.”