Global Battery Alliance launches world's first Battery Passport proof of concept

18 January 2023, 13:55:26

The Global Battery Alliance (GBA), the world's largest multi-stakeholder organization to establish a sustainable battery value chain by 2030, today launched the proof of concept for its Battery Passport at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos.

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 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 organizations 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.

Bringing transparency to battery value chains through the introduction of the battery passport is a critical step toward establishing sustainable battery value chains in a rapidly growing industry. The Battery Passport is 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.

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 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 by stakeholders from industry, academia, non-governmental organisations and government.

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 (please note the disclaimer). 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 ground-breaking 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 U.S. 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 harmonized framework for sustainability performance in the future.

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