Glencore joins world’s first battery passport pilot

Global miner and commodity trader Glencore has now become part of the world’s first battery passport proof of concept launched by the Global Battery Alliance.

“We spearheaded the first pilot passport leveraging the ReSource platform in collaboration with Glencore’s Kamoto Copper Company SA, LG Energy Solution and Tesla,” Glencore stated in a media release.

“As the world seeks to address climate change, minerals are set to play a pivotal role in decarbonizing energy consumption and mobility. At the same time, society’s expectations with respect to environmental and social performance of companies continue to increase.

“The ESG performance of mineral production as well as battery and vehicle manufacturing must be clearly communicated to our customers and other key stakeholders. Traceability is key to this. It has always been possible to track mineral units back to origin and gather ESG information at each step, for example through chain of custody approaches.

“New technologies offer us an unprecedented ability for traceability in the supply chain. We support the development of this through being one of the founders of the ReSource consortium – an end-to-end collaboration between major cobalt industry players working in the DRC to deploy various technologies, including blockchain, to link digital flows with physical material flows on the ground while allowing the protection of commercially sensitive relationships.

“The GBA’s battery passport provides the framework for a standardized approach to collecting and reporting on ESG data specific to each battery. To be credible and effective, we need a shared understanding of what needs to be reported and how. This can only be done through partnerships with stakeholders across the industry and ultimately the end consumer.

“As a GBA member and participant in the battery passport pilot, we are proud to have contributed to multi-stakeholder process to develop the proof of concept launched at Davos, 2023.”