EU Battery Regulation 2023/1542 is a gamechanger for battery makers importing to the EU and the companies they supply.

We’ve covered what these regulations mean for battery manufacturers in depth in a previous Insight.

In this Insight, we want to focus on the timeline. What do battery manufacturers need to act on for the near term, and what do they need to plan for in the long term?

EU Battery Regulation Overview

Before we start, let’s quickly review what EU Battery Regulation 2023/1542 entails:

Objective:
The EU Battery Regulation aims to ensure that batteries placed on the European market are sustainable and safe throughout their life cycle, covering all actors and their activities.

Who is impacted by the EU Battery Regulation?
The Regulation applies to any battery in the EU market with a capacity over 2kWh

What is required?
Article 7, together with Annex II, dictates required carbon footprints of electric vehicle batteries and rechargeable industrial batteries.

When does it start?
The regulation begins to come into force a year from the passage of its implementing act - likely sometime in 2025.

When do I need my Product Carbon Footprint? How about a digital battery passport?

You need to start with a real-data-based Product Carbon Footprint.

The EU requires the carbon footprint of every EV battery sold in the EU be calculated and made publicly accessible by February 2025. Industrial batteries over 2kWh get an extra year - their deadline is in 2026.

The information in the footprint must be specific to each model and manufacturing plant and collected throughout the value chain. Any changes to materials or facility-level energy mix must be reflected, and carbon offsets cannot be included in the calculation. This will be used by the EU to help sort EV batteries into similar-performing types for easy identification in the future.

For the 2025 and 2026 deadlines, the Product Carbon Footprint just needs to include active material production. This system boundary, from raw materials to the finished product leaving the factory, is often called Cradle to Gate.

In the medium term, you’ll need to start engaging your suppliers and partners. In 2027, the system boundary requirements will expand to cover the four main stages of the battery life cycle:

• Mineral extraction and pre-processing
• Battery manufacturing (inclusive of active materials, cell manufacturing, and battery pack assembly)
• Distribution
• End-of-life processing and recycling

This full-lifecycle view is called Cradle to Grave.

Check out the infographics below for complete system boundary information.

For EV Batteries:

For Industrial Batteries:

Also in 2027, that data will need to be stored in a publicly available Digital Battery Passport. The idea behind the gap is to give companies time to iron out the process before the repercussions for failure get more serious.

(Already thinking about how much work that plant-level, real data-based PCF is going to be to calculate? Glassdome can help. Our PCF platform makes Battery Regulation compliance simple.)

Where should I start?

You should have all of the digital and organizational infrastructure in place to respond as soon as the implementing act is a go.

The most immediate need is a Product Carbon Footprint for each EV and industrial battery you produce. Then you can incorporate that PCF into a Digital Battery Passport.

Step 1: Calculate your PCF
As you can probably gather from the diagrams above, PCF calculation can be incredibly tedious and time-consuming. Setting your system boundaries, poring through dense databases, making sure you’re complying with reams of certification and legal regulations. Glassdome’s PCF solution helps manufacturers simplify PCF calculation and reporting.

Step 2: Verify your PCF
Not just any PCF report will do when you’re trying to comply with regulations. You need to create a report that complies with international standards to achieve your business needs. Glassdome’s PCF solution is ISO 14067 verified by LRQA. That means you’ll be able to get the PCF report you create with Glassdome verified quickly and easily compared to competitor solutions.

Step 3: Publish your PCF
Create a publicly available platform for regulators and customers to view your PCF. Our consultants can help ensure you’re complying with EU regulations.

Step 4: Create your Digital Battery Passport
With a compliant PCF in place, you have a couple of years to build the infrastructure of a digital battery passport for all of your battery models. Glassdome’s plant and product level data makes acquiring real data across multiple models a snap.

Want to learn more? Get in touch with a Glassdome sustainability expert today. Through our work with organizations like Samsung SDI, the Global Battery Alliance, and LG Electronics, we know how to help the world’s leading battery makers prepare for this regulation.

Glassdome exists to work with manufacturers to help build a more abundant future. Few projects exemplify our vision like the Global Battery Alliance Digital Battery Passport program.

The GBA was established at the World Economic Forum in 2017 through cooperation between battery producers, mining and energy companies, and government agencies. The Digital Battery Passport initiative helps it achieve its goal of a carbon neutral battery value chain by 2050.

Glassdome is leading a pilot program for the GBA. We’re bringing together 13 global companies and organizations to get ready for the EU Battery Directive’s implementation while advancing the GBA’s other goals.

How exactly does the project work, and how will it move both of our visions forward? Read on to find out.

The GBA Digital Battery Passport

The Digital Battery Passport is a system that tracks, manages, and provides access to full lifecycle and sustainability data for EV and industrial batteries over 2kWh distributed in the EU. To comply, battery manufacturers and suppliers need to collect and manage key data like their product carbon footprint (PCF), percentage of recycled materials, and country of origin.

The EU Battery Directive requires the implementation of a battery passport by February 2027. The EU requires that the battery passport contains:

• A unique identifier
• The type of model of the battery
• Performance and durability statistics, updated over the battery’s lifecycle by those who repair or repurpose the battery

The GBA pilot program takes it a step further. The GBA passport, accessible via a QR code on the battery itself, will include:

Labeling data
Information necessary for identification of a specific battery and its components

Technical data
Technical parameters of a battery model and particular battery

Usage data
Information related to events during the battery’s use

Sustainability data
Sustainability performance expectations for the battery

What ESG indicators does the GBA Digital Battery Passport program cover?

The GBA goes several steps further than the EU when it comes to economic, social, and governance indicators.

The GBA Digital Battery Passport process will cover twenty one ESG indicators, whose frameworks are in varying degrees of completion.

Indicators marked in green have existing coverage in existing rulebooks or drafts.
Indicators marked in blue correspond to risk categories in the EU battery regulation due diligence chapter.
Indicators marked in black are remaining salient ESG issues.

What is Glassdome’s role?

Glassdome is project managing the pilot, storing the PCF data in our secure central hub, and helping companies in the pilot program navigate and learn from the initiative. We’re also acting as an expert guide that knows the details of battery passport regulation front-to-back. 

Wrangling data from thirteen companies and organizations involved isn't easy, but our background in secure data management and sustainability metric calculation for global enterprises make us well-suited for this role. 

The members of this program are:

• Glassdome
• Samsung SDI (battery manufacturer)
• SKIET (separator)
• EcoPro (cathode material)
• SK Nexilis (copper foil)
• Lotte Infracell (aluminum foil)
• Choil Aluminum (aluminum foil)
• Inzi Controls (battery module manufacturer)
• SK tes (waste battery recycler)
• PM Grow (battery subscription service and reusable battery company)
• Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre (Australian battery research center)
• Korea Battery Industry Association (Korean battery trade association)
• SK C&C (digital carbon passport platform company)

How can Glassdome help your company?

Are you a battery manufacturer or supplier that needs to comply with the EU Battery Directive, or wants to get ready by joining in with the GBA pilot projects?

You’re going to need to start with a Product Carbon Footprint. Glassdome’s real data-based Product Carbon Footprint solution is made for manufacturers and suppliers. It simplifies carbon compliance, with integrated data aggregation and calculation and automated reporting.

Sound interesting? Get in touch and one of our experts can help you find the best climate compliance solution for your business.

If you work at the intersection of manufacturing and sustainability, you’ve probably heard about ISO 14067. 

Whether you’re an automotive supplier whose OEM is asking for verified product carbon footprint data, a consumer tech company whose customers are getting suspicious of greenwashing, or a company that wants to do right by the environment, it’s something you need to know about.

At Glassdome, we’re proud to say our Product Carbon Footprint solution is ISO 14067 verified.

That’s why we’ve put together everything you need to know about ISO 14067 and why it matters to your business.

What is ISO 14067?

Let’s start with the basics. ISO stands for the International Organization for Standardization. As they succinctly put it, ISO “brings global experts together to agree on the best way of doing things.”

If a product or process is verified by ISO, it’s made in a way that holds up to the highest global standards.

The ISO 14067 standard codifies the principles, requirements, and guidelines for quantifying and reporting a product carbon footprint (PCF) (also known as a CFP, or carbon footprint of a product). It addresses only a product’s impact on climate change, excluding other social, economic, and environmental factors. 

This standard is consistent with two international life cycle assessment (LCA) standards:

ISO 14040: LCA principles and framework
ISO 14044: LCA requirements and guidelines

But while an LCA covers climate change (carbon emissions), water, ozone, acidification, land use, and more, a PCF only looks at climate change impact measured through the carbon emissions created in the production of a product.

A similar, but not quite identical standard is ISO 14064, which covers an organization’s scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, and is consistent with the GHG Protocol. Useful, but not a PCF.

ISO 14067 isn’t just important for corporate sustainability. It also aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goal 13 on Climate Action. Companies that follow it are helping to foster a better world for everyone.

What does ISO 14067 do for my business?

Getting an ISO 14067 verified PCF has a broad array of benefits for your business. They can include:

Reliable benchmarking for organizations and consumers: PCF is the only apples-to-apples comparison tool when comparing product sustainability. Facility or corporate level data doesn’t work at the product level given the massive amount of additional variables they bring to the comparison.

Trust and transparency: Greenwashing is rampant in sustainability declarations and advertising, and consumers are catching on. A verified PCF shows you take compliance seriously, and your data and improvement are trustworthy.

Streamlined compliance: As you’ll see below, by conducting your PCF calculation with a verified solution, you can cut down the time to comply with regulations from the EU, California, and others by weeks or months.

Improved efficiency: Once you know your PCF, you’ll know how to improve it. And happily for your bottom line, one of the best ways to do it is to increase efficiency. Sustainability improvement can go hand in hand with continuous improvement efforts in your facilities.

Strong sustainability foundation: Sustainability standards rarely live on their own. If you need to comply with standards like ISO 14001 (environmental management systems) or ISO 14025 (environmental labels), you need to start with a verified first step.

What does Glassdome’s ISO 14067 verification mean for me?

Like we said in the introduction, the Glassdome Product Carbon Footprint solution is ISO 14067 verified. But what’s that mean for your business specifically?

If your business deals with global environmental regulations like EU CBAM, California SB 253, or the Digital Battery Passport, you’ll enjoy a far simpler third-party verification process. Carbon emissions that are measured and reported through our platform will be ISO 14067 compliant by default. That cuts time, cost, and red tape.

And that is about to become very important. Emissions reporting for CBAM will be required by 2025. And once it’s implemented in 2026, third-party verification will be required. Also, Article 47 of the new EU Battery Regulation means many battery makers need to have verified PCFs sooner rather than later.

Third-party verification can take up to three months, and the cost can be quite high. By dramatically cutting the time to produce the report with our automated system, sometimes to as low as two days, and using a verified solution that knows exactly what verifiers need, you can sail through regulations with comparative ease.

What’s next?

Does an ISO 14067 verified PCF like something that your business might need? Just want to know more about how these regulations could impact your business? Drop us a line. 

Get the true picture of the carbon footprint of your products. Before you customers demand it and you’re snarled in red tape.