Among the EU Batteries Regulation’s key milestones is the introduction of concrete carbon footprint (CF) requirements for all electric vehicle batteries. Representing the first requirements of this kind globally, the rules will evolve in the coming years from mandatory declaration of the battery’s CF performance class to a maximum CF threshold that the batteries will need to meet to enter the EU market. These requirements will inevitably create new demands for CF data collection and sharing across global electric vehicle battery value chains.
Drawing on evidence collected though a literature review and interviews with stakeholders from the battery value chain, this CEPS In-Depth Analysis paper provides an overview of prospective challenges to complying with the EU’s CF requirements. A first group identifies challenges concerning the collection and quality of CF data. Some issues within this group relate to difficulties – often due to confidentiality concerns – in acquiring certain types of CF data from supply chain actors, as well as confusion due to data submitted in different reference units, challenges in tracking emissions during transportation of end-of-life batteries and limited available data in secondary data sources.
A second group of challenges surround calculating the batteries’ CF. Specifically, it was reported that there are practical challenges with defining the functional unit for the CF calculation of the recycling stage, that companies often lack inhouse capacities to perform the CF calculations and that there are disparities between available LCA software.
This paper was prepared in the context of the BATRAW project, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101058359.
