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A digital product passport is a sophisticated tool that stores vital product data throughout the product lifecycle. It holds detailed information about the product's production, testing, and recycling. The purpose of a digital product passport is to ensure product compliance with various regulations and to provide a comprehensive record of the product’s history. This is particularly crucial for batteries sold to consumers, as it provides assurance that the battery they are purchasing is safe, compliant, and sustainable.
The digital product passport initiative is a key action under the Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) and is part of the proposed Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation. The objective of this initiative is to gradually introduce digital product passports in key markets by 2024, such as the battery passports for electric vehicles.
Digital vehicle passports represent a groundbreaking innovation in the automotive industry, serving as a comprehensive digital identity for vehicles. These passports encapsulate a detailed history and current status of a vehicle, utilizing blockchain technology to ensure authenticity, security, and immutability of data. Stakeholders, including manufacturers, dealers, regulatory bodies, and end-users, benefit significantly from the transparency and efficiency these digital passports offer.
While DPPs can apply to a wide range of products, the focus in this article is on a specific type - the Digital Battery Passport (DBP). This technology is of particular relevance considering the increasing reliance on batteries for various applications, from electric vehicles to renewable energy storage systems. DBPs provide crucial information about a battery's life cycle, including its production, use, recycling, and disposal.
Understanding the core concept of DBPs is the first step towards appreciating their potential impact on different industry sectors and the environment at large. These digital passports are, in essence, a manifestation of digital traceability, which entails tracking and documenting every phase of a product's life cycle. By offering in-depth visibility, DBPs can significantly enhance the ethical and environmental practices in the battery industry.
Battery passports are essentially digital tools that encapsulate all critical information about a battery’s lifecycle. From the raw materials used in its manufacture to its disposal or recycling, a battery passport will offer a comprehensive view of the product's journey. But who needs this information, and why is it important?
For Consumers: Battery passports bestow upon consumers the power of knowledge. They enable informed decision-making regarding the acquisition, utilization, and responsible disposition of products. This empowerment is pivotal in fostering a more sustainable and environmentally conscious consumer behavior.
For Governments and Regulatory Bodies: For these entities, battery passports serve as an indispensable instrument for monitoring compliance with environmental standards and regulations. They facilitate the oversight of industry practices, ensuring adherence to prescribed sustainability benchmarks.
For the Industry Sector: From a business perspective, battery passports can significantly streamline supply chain operations, unveiling potential inefficiencies or environmental liabilities. This insight can catalyze operational enhancements, cost reductions, and an overall elevation in sustainability. Specifically, in sectors such as oil and gas, energy, mining, steel, textiles, construction, electronic waste, plastics, chemicals, and automotive, Digital Battery Passports (DBPs) offer unprecedented visibility into the lifecycle of batteries. This visibility is instrumental in mitigating environmental risks and championing sustainable practices across the board.
Battery passports are setting the precedent for digital product passports. From 2027, every industrial and electric vehicle battery will have to come with a digital product passport, more specifically a battery passport. This passport will contain critical information linked to safety requirements and targets for recycled content in batteries.
The digital battery passport will provide data on:
Heavy industries such as oil and gas, energy, mining, steel, textiles, construction, electronic waste, plastics, chemicals, and automotive are increasingly adopting DPPs. By leveraging digital traceability, these sectors can enhance their sustainability efforts and comply with regulatory requirements.
In the energy sector, for instance, Digital Battery Passport (DBPs) can provide detailed information about the environmental footprint of batteries used in renewable energy storage systems. Similarly, in the automotive industry, DBPs can offer insights into the lifecycle of batteries used in electric vehicles, helping to reduce their overall environmental impact.
By enabling greater transparency and traceability in the battery supply chain, DBPs can help identify and reduce carbon-intensive activities. This could include improving manufacturing processes, optimizing logistics, and facilitating effective recycling.
Furthermore, DBPs can help to combat greenwashing, a practice where companies misrepresent their environmental impact to appear more sustainable than they actually are. By providing verifiable information about a battery's lifecycle, DBPs can hold manufacturers accountable for their environmental footprint and discourage deceptive practices.
Want to make a difference? Create your own battery passport now:
The new EU Battery Regulation approved in July 2023 by the EU (Regulation 2023/1542), introduces significant changes and requirements aimed at enhancing the sustainability and safety of batteries and battery-operated products. The regulation introduces new battery categories, including portable, industrial, automotive, electric vehicle (EV), and light means of transport (LMT) batteries. Each category has specific requirements and regulations.
The development of digital battery passports (DBPs) is being propelled by efforts in the European Union, China, and through collaborative initiatives like the Global Battery Alliance (GBA) and the Battery Pass consortium. These passports aim to bolster transparency and foster sustainable, circular value chains.
– The EU Battery Regulation mandates comprehensive content requirements for the digital battery passport, including general battery and manufacturer information, compliance and certifications, carbon footprint, supply chain due diligence, battery materials and composition, circularity and resource efficiency, and performance and durability.
– Following the 2023 revision of the EU Battery Legislation, the Chinese government launched the development of a Chinese digital battery passport. The aim is to facilitate trade with the EU, by requiring similar data transparency requirements along the EV battery value chain in China, such as the carbon footprint, circularity, and ESG.
– Policy-makers can scale digital battery passports globally by standardizing reporting parameters and technical frameworks, integrating with existing systems and initiatives, and advancing and supporting industry action.
The emergence of DBPs is closely tied to the evolving regulatory landscape around sustainability and circular economy. The European Union's Circular Economy Action Plan and the Sustainable Products Initiative are notable frameworks that advocate for greater product traceability. The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, in particular, is expected to play a crucial role in promoting the adoption of DBPs.
The EU's Battery Regulation Amendment lays out a comprehensive set of rules designed to protect the environment by reducing hazardous materials in batteries and increasing the recycling rate of batteries. A key component of this amendment is the battery passport, which stores relevant battery data throughout the product's lifecycle.
Every industrial or electric vehicle (EV) battery on the EU market with a capacity of over 2 kWh will require a battery passport, irrespective of the origin of the battery. It is the responsibility of the party placing the battery on the market to ensure that all required data is entered into the digital record and that the information is correct and up-to-date.
Starting Aug. 18, 2024, manufacturers shall affix the CE marking before placing the battery on the market or putting it into service. The manufacturer shall affix the CE marking to each individual battery that meets the applicable requirements or, where that is not possible or not warranted due to the nature of the battery, to the packaging and the documents accompanying the battery.
From 1st February 2027, all EV and industrial batteries sold in the EU market will require a unique battery passport. Information on the battery is to be retrieved using a QR code, and must include performance classification for carbon impact, electrochemical performance, and durability requirements.
Key milestone:
2023
2024 - Battery management system (BMS)
2025
2026
2027
2028
A digital product passport, as a rule, encompasses a thorough and detailed set of data about the product's origin, its composition, the possibilities for repair and dismantling, and the procedures for handling it at the end of its life. In addition, it meticulously documents the product's environmental footprint over the course of its entire lifecycle, which includes factors such as energy consumption, emissions produced, and the generation of waste. This wealth of information is of paramount importance when it comes to assessing the product's overall sustainability and its compliance with established environmental standards.
Digital Product Passports (DPPs) not only enhance the value of products by providing detailed information about their lifecycle, but also foster a deeper engagement with customers. Consumers today are increasingly conscious about their environmental footprint and are seeking products that align with their values. By providing transparency about a product's environmental impact, DPPs empower consumers to make informed purchasing decisions, thereby fostering loyalty and trust.
- General battery and manufacturer information: Battery Identification; manufacturer’s identification; manufacturing place; manufacturing date; battery category; battery weight; battery status.
– Compliance, labels, certifications: Separate collection symbol; symbols for cadmium and lead; carbon footprint label; meaning of labels and symbols; EU declaration of conformity and its ID; compliance of test results.
– Battery carbon footprint: Declared carbon footprint; share of battery carbon footprint per life cycle stage; carbon footprint performance class; web link to public carbon footprint study; administrative information about the manufacturer; information about the geographic location of the battery manufacturing facility.
– Supply chain due diligence: Information on responsible sourcing as indicated in the report on due diligence policies (the due diligence report is the only mandatory supply chain due diligence requirement for the digital battery passport).
– Battery materials and composition: Battery chemistry; critical raw materials; materials used in the cathode, anode, and electrolyte; hazardous substances; impact of substances on the environment and on human health or safety.
– Circularity and resource efficiency: Design for circularity information (i.e. disassembly and dismantling information, spare parts information; safety instructions); recycled and renewable content (i.e. recycled content for cobalt, lithium, nickel, and lead; renewable content share); end-of-life battery information (i.e. information on waste prevention and collection).
– Performance and durability: Battery performance reporting (e.g. battery capacity, energy round trip efficiency), durability data (e.g. expected lifetime in cycles/calendar years).
Digital battery passports play a crucial role in the decarbonization of the energy sector. They provide transparency and traceability for the carbon footprint of batteries, enabling more sustainable sourcing, manufacturing, and recycling processes. This, in turn, contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Digital battery passports also empower consumers to make more informed purchasing decisions by providing them with clear and reliable information about the environmental impact of the batteries they buy. This can incentivize more sustainable consumer behaviors and drive demand for more sustainable batteries.
The technical design and operation of the battery passport required it to be fully interoperable with other digital product passports required by Union law concerning eco-design, in relation to the technical, semantic and organizational aspects of end-to-end communication and data transfer; allows data authentication, reliability and integrity shall be ensured; and the battery passport shall be such that a high level of security and privacy is ensured and fraud is avoided. The Regulation also says that to ensure that the battery passport is flexible, dynamic and market-driven and evolves in line with business models, markets and innovation, it should be based on a decentralized data system.
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), commonly known as blockchain, is a significant player in enabling supply chain traceability. By providing a secure, transparent, and immutable record of transactions, DLT can verify the provenance of products and ensure the accuracy of information in DBPs. This plays a critical role in enhancing transparency, combating greenwashing, and promoting sustainability in various industry sectors.
Finboot provides end-to-end traceability for complex industrial supply chains using blockchain technology to implement a digital enterprise ecosystem to create digital product passports. Blockchain decentralized systems are able to meet these requirements and provide key product information to the parties who value it most.
Blockchain technology ensures that any modifications or updates to information about each specific battery from source to production, to end user, reuse and recycling are recorded and validated, and it cannot be altered or tampered with. Open public blockchains, in particular, are beneficial as they more easily allow for interoperability with existing systems and the transfer of information and records from one system to another.
Our digital traceability solutions are underpinned by 4 flagship features:
We are using digital innovation to help the petrochemicals, oil, and gas industry achieve sustainable and traceable operations. Our solutions enable these industries to meet the requirements of digital product passports, including data management, data sharing, and traceability.
Finboot has been working with Cepsa – a global energy company with a diverse portfolio spanning oil and gas and petrochemicals – since the start of 2023.
Finboot’s MARCO Track & Trace has allowed Cepsa to implement digital traceability systems for tracking each batch of vegetable oil from its origin to its use in biodegradable surfactant production, in addition to automating bookkeeping and determining what percentage of output is from renewable and circular inputs.
Finboot and Amber have created a fully traceable ecosystem that tracks renewable energy from source to end user. This innovative solution, based on blockchain technology, matches energy generation and use, ensuring a certifiable and accurate means of proving origin.
We set-out to build a new application, powered by Finboot’s MARCO platform, that allows management of data received from renewable energy plants (such as solar or wind). Thanks to the underlying blockchain technology that we will build on, we’ll be able to provide the tools that securely record and validate this newly designed Digital Guarantees of Origin (GOs), avoiding the real problem in the industry around ‘double spending’.”
Repsol has been a client since 2018 and uses our digital traceability solutions extensively across several business areas. They use our digital ecosystems for the traceability of low-carbon fuels like HVO (Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil), and circular chemical products like packaging.
As the world accelerates towards achieving electrification, the demand for sustainable battery production is skyrocketing. The EU is taking steps to ensure this growth is sustainable and traceable. One such step is the introduction of the digital product passport, a revolutionary tool that provides end-to-end traceability for complex industrial supply chains.
While digital product passports are still in their early stages, they hold great promise for promoting sustainability and transparency in various industries, not just in battery production. The EU's commitment to implementing digital product passports in key markets by 2024 is a clear indication of their potential impact.
In the near future, we can expect to see digital product passports for other types of products in the sectors identified in the Circular Economy Action Plan, such as textiles, construction, consumer electronics, packaging, and food. As these developments unfold, the importance of digital product passports in supporting the energy transition will become increasingly evident.
In conclusion, digital product passports are set to transform the way we produce, use, and recycle products. By providing a comprehensive record of a product’s history, they ensure compliance with regulations, promote sustainability, and create new opportunities for innovation and growth. As the adoption of digital product passports continues to grow, they will play an increasingly crucial role in supporting the energy transition and building a more sustainable future.
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