October marked an important month for the “Battery Pass” project and its consortium members and partners. We officially kicked off the external consultation process with a webinar on 18th October, and opened up the draft content guidance for feedback from cross-industry experts and organisations.
More than 250 experts representing the broader battery passport ecosystem including other consortia/projects, governments, standard development organisations, membership and industry associations as well as business services companies and industrial players had signed up to hear about the latest project updates and to become an active contributor in the first feedback round from mid-October to mid-November.
The consultation webinar opened with keynotes by Sophie Hermann (partner at Systemiq, the consortium lead) and Uwe Seidel (senior project manager at VDI/VDE-IT, the funding agency). Their contributions highlighted the pivotal role the “Battery Pass” project plays in connecting and aligning the diverse range of battery passport initiatives across Europe. Afterwards Susanne Kadner (director circular economy at acatech) and Tilmann Vahle (program director at Systemiq) introduced the “Battery Pass” project, followed by a short presentation on the GBA battery passport activities by Torsten Freund (head of project management “battery passport” at GBA).
Next up, the “Battery Pass” team provided an overview on the EU Battery Passport concept and, together with the webinar participants, split into groups to discuss content-related reporting requirements for the battery passport in more detail. The topics covered ranged from carbon footprint to responsible supply chain information, circularity-related metrics and performance and durability data.
To further build on the insightful conversations during the webinar, participants were asked to provide detailed comments on the first draft of the content guidance document. Through incorporating multi-stakeholder perspectives, the “Battery Pass” aims to ensure applicability for the industry and prepare the ground for a wide-spread adoption of the final content guidance once published.
Many comments have reached the consortium since, which are currently being assessed and incorporated by the “Battery Pass” working groups. In addition, a second feedback round has just been kicked off, focusing on the ‘Composition’ and ‘Product and Process Design’ elements of the EU Battery Regulation. The final version of the guidance document will be published by March/April 2023 with the EU Battery Regulation expected to enter into force early next year.
In the meantime, the technical standards workstream of the “Battery Pass” project, led by Fraunhofer IPK and FIWARE Foundation, will kick-off the external consultation process with more information to follow shortly.
We’d like to thank all participants for their attendance and further involvement in the ongoing process towards advancing the EU Battery Passport. For those interested, the opening of the webinar is available below:
