The “Battery Pass” consortium is the first project that brings together experts from leading organizations along the entire battery value chain to develop a timely and holistic guidance on all relevant aspects of a Digital Battery Passport as mandated by the EU Battery Regulation.

Compliance with EU Battery Regulation in focus, the “Battery Pass” also goes beyond, harmonizing with other regulatory initiatives as well as aiming for increased sustainability and circularity.

The project is unique in its scope by covering both content guidance as well as technical standards, validating the feasibility of both through a demonstrator and assessing potential benefits and the value of the passport.

To enable maximum synergy potential with other ongoing initiatives, “Battery Pass” aligns and collaborates with e.g., the Global Battery Alliance as well as Catena-X.

Not only the industry, but also standard development organizations and European institutions are stakeholders that will benefit from the results and recommendations in the context of their individual efforts.

The “Battery Pass” evolved out of the Circular Economy Initiative Germany (CEID) dating back to the year 2016 and identifying levers for a circular management of traction batteries including “knowledge of battery life”. Building on this multi-stakeholder set-up, a collaborative approach continues to be top of mind for the “Battery Pass” Consortium.

Next to building on existing expertise and already commercially applied solutions of core partners (e.g., Circulor, TWAICE and FIWARE Foundation), “Battery Pass” intensively cooperates with associated partners Global Battery Alliance (GBA) and Catena-X on e.g., carbon footprint accounting, responsible supply chain reporting as well as the development of technical standards.

On top of that, “Battery Pass” has established relationships and is in regular exchange with all major battery passport ecosystem participants including e.g., WBCSD, IRMA, Cirpass, GS1, DIN/DKE, VDE, Transport & Environment and the European Environment Agency.

By closely aligning with and integrating different initiatives and perspectives, maximum impact will be achieved through commonly accepted multi-stakeholder views.

Additionally, balancing sustainability objectives vs industry feasibility is essential to ensure business value and implementation success – that’s why in developing its outputs, Battery Pass considers both, compliance with the EU Battery Regulation and societal goals, and embedding business value.

By being in constant dialogue with European and international regulating and standardizing bodies as well as industry, we are developing a range of ways how our results find their way into application.

Not least by collaborating with leading international initiatives like Global Battery Alliance and inviting companies and organizations from across the world to contribute to the work, Battery Pass has a view beyond European borders to take a global view.

Given its large market size when it comes to battery demand, the automotive industry plays a major role in the context of the EU Battery Regulation with certain aspects of it first applying to traction batteries of electric vehicles followed by other industries. While the “Battery Pass” Consortium picks this up through referring to traction batteries specifically in certain analysis, the overall scope of the project includes all types of batteries and industries.

The battery passport aims to support the sustainable and circular management of batteries by providing a digital infrastructure for the documentation and exchange of valuable business and sustainability information. In the future, this information will be used to transparently present the entire life cycle and value creation process, enabling the design of production and value creation processes according to circular principles. Ultimately, the life cycle of the entire battery system shall be extended as far as possible (towards a cascaded use) and the recycling of the raw materials, materials and components used should be promoted at the end of the life cycle. Furthermore, the creation of transparent supply chains for battery raw materials will be enabled.

We share the view with the European Commission and the Global Battery Alliance that through a digital battery passport, environmental impacts of battery manufacturing such as GHG emissions can be lowered, resource efficiency can be raised along the entire value chain, and upholding of human rights standards can be assured better.

For battery value chain players more specifically – next to pure regulatory compliance – there are several use cases to tap into along a battery’s life cycle, starting at lower costs for reporting mandatory product related information, to fetching better second hand prices of electric vehicles through better state of health data when vehicles are sold, to reducing costs for end of life handling and increased yield and quality of recycling processes.

Switching current battery production to circular value creation can, according to studies, not only reduce GHG emissions, but also lower battery costs by a further 20%. The digital infrastructure of a battery passport supports this endeavour and supports the circularity of batteries. Especially in a context of rising raw material costs and strategic dependencies, circular battery value creation is of great importance with positive effects on the cost base.

However, the most important effect is the significant reduction of the necessary primary raw material input and its corresponding (often negative) consequences. Consistently implemented, recycling could provide about 10% of the important battery materials (especially lithium, nickel and cobalt) by 2030; even 40% by 2050. (see: Circular Economy Initiative Germany (2020): Resource-saving battery cycles).

Once scaled and implemented, we expect that Battery Passport systems will lower companies’ costs for capturing and transmitting critical sustainability and business information while raising their usability for management decisions – resulting in a positive business case for businesses to apply this emerging technology.

As a publicly financed project, we are open to all relevant stakeholders interested in contributing to the success of our endeavour. Depending on the type of organization and expertise as well as the status of our project, different ways of contribution and collaboration are available ranging from becoming an official supporting partner to joining consultation webinars or simply following news on “Battery Pass” by subscribing to our newsletters. Do not hesitate to approach us.