The Global Battery Alliance (GBA) has launched the second wave of its Battery Passport pilots, including 11 pilot consortia. The GBA is the largest multi-stakeholder organization in the energy storage space, bringing more than 160 members across the battery value chain and the wider ecosystem together — including public organizations, NGOs, labor unions, and academia.
Building on the successful launch of the world’s first Battery Passport proof of concept in January 2023 led by Audi and Tesla, involving Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited (CATL), LG Energy Solution, Samsung SDI, Eurasian Resources Group (ERG) and others, the second wave of pilots will establish the Minimum Viable Product of the GBA Battery Passport, complete with a product level ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) score.
The GBA has established separate pilot consortia, led by global battery manufacturers, including Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited (CATL), EVE Energy, Farasis Energy, FinDreams Battery, LG Energy Solution, Samsung SDI, Sunwoda, and CALB Group — representing over 80% of the global electric vehicle battery market share.
Working in a unique pre-competitive setting, the pilots also involve seven independent track and trace solution providers, including Circularise, Circulor, Glassdome, Nanjing Fuchuang Intelligent Manufacturing Technology, RCS Global (an SLR company), Shenzhen Dianlian Technology, and Shenzhen Precise Testing Technology.
The battery industry for electric mobility and energy storage is forecast to grow 17-fold by 2030, driven by global commitments to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030 in line with COP28 targets. Mainstreaming sustainability into this rapidly growing industry from the outset is a critical priority: sustainable battery value chains are resilient value chains and the opportunities associated with this growth can contribute meaningfully to making the green transition a just transition.
In the context of increasing geo-strategic competition, the GBA pilots send a powerful message about the potential for international, pre-competitive collaboration to scale a sustainable battery value chain.
The GBA flagship initiative, the Battery Passport, is a transparency and accountability framework building on requirements from battery sustainability regulations, including the EU Battery Regulation, and voluntary standards into a comprehensive framework of globally harmonized, traceable, and comparable performance metrics at the product level. Reporting against Battery Passport rulebooks will facilitate benchmarking and the calculation of a GBA ESG score.
By issuing a score aimed at investors, procurement divisions, and consumers, the GBA seeks to contribute to building a platform or marketplace where products compete on independently validated and verifiable sustainability performance, triggering continuous improvement and a race to the top.
The second wave of pilots aims to enhance and accelerate the realization of the GBA vision of sustainable, circular and responsible battery value chains and is significantly expanding the scope of the 2023 proof of concept. Pilot participants will report on seven rulebooks developed by multi-stakeholder working groups convened by the GBA.
Rulebooks set out harmonized sustainability performance expectations for seven key metrics, including the previously tested Greenhouse Gas rulebook to calculate the battery carbon footprint, human rights and child labour indices, and the newly developed rulebooks on Forced Labour, Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, Biodiversity, and Circular Design of batteries.
Based on the reporting by value chain participants across the pilot consortia, differentiated ESG scores will be issued, representing a major steppingstone in incentivizing companies to go beyond compliance in addressing sustainability risks and impacts along the value chain. The GBA expects to publish the results of the pilots by the end of year.
Filed Under: Batteries, Technology News