Achieving Digital Battery Passport Interoperability With Emerging Passports and Regulations
European organizations are managing multiple priorities—sustainability, digital infrastructure, circularity, reducing reliance on lithium and fossil fuels, expanding green technology, and meeting the European Union’s (EU) 2026 recent regulation, digital product passport (DPP).
A digital passport electronically enables consumers, businesses, and governments to make responsible purchasing decisions about a product’s origin, materials, components, carbon footprint, supply chain, and much more. By scanning a data carrier such as a quick response (QR) code, supply chain businesses, compliance officers, or other important entities can view, share product-related information, and more.
Battery producers on the other hand, are not only focused on meeting DPP requirements but also their own industry-centric passport, digital battery passport (DBP). The battery passport regulation establishes EU-wide sustainability requirements for all types of batteries entering the European market, including electric vehicle batteries (EVBs), waste portable batteries, battery energy storage systems (BESS), industrial batteries, batteries for light means of transport (LMT) such as electric bikes, and starting, lighting, and ignition (SLI) batteries.
In addition to DPP and DBP, there are several emerging battery initiatives that will require battery producers to provide reuse, recycle, collection-systems information, and make relevant waste prevention and management information available to end users and distributors.
To help facilitate passport interoperability, industries are turning to product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions to help them collect and consolidate information into one location to help meet digital passport requirements.
Who’s Behind the Digital Battery Passports?
Various initiatives and consortiums are working diligently to establish and standardize battery passports to ensure compliance, transparency, and accountability across the battery value chain. Key projects advancing the implementation and integration of battery passports within the EU and beyond include:
Global Battery Alliance (GBA)
The Global Battery Alliance (GBA) is a public-private collaboration platform founded in 2017 to help establish a sustainable battery value chain by 2030. The Alliance brings together 140+ businesses, governments, academics, industry stakeholders, and non-governmental organizations to drive systemic change across the entire value chain. The GBA acts to ensure battery production is environmentally sustainable, safeguard human rights, and promote health.
With a 2019 publication, the GBA outlined the need to rapidly scale sustainable, responsible, and circular battery value chains as a major driver to meet the Paris Agreement targets. To address the issues presented in the publication, the GBA conceptualized the DBP as a framework to increase transparency across the battery value chain and by 2020, they captured the initial vision for this ecosystem and roadmap.
Still evolving, the battery passport program continues to add new standards and requirements as they come into play. Once completed, the DBP will consist of the following:
- Global Reporting Framework: Governs measurement, auditing, and reporting of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) parameters across the battery value chain.
- Digital ID for Batteries: Contains data on ESG performance, manufacturing history, and provenance, aiding battery life extension and recycling.
- Harmonized Digital Systems: Collaborates across the value chain to report data into the battery passport.
- Digital Platform: Collects, exchanges, collates, and reports data among stakeholders to advance a sustainable value chain for electric vehicles (EV) and stationary batteries, informing policy and performance benchmarks.
- ESG Score for Batteries: Facilitates responsible consumer purchasing based on reported data.
Battery Pass Project
Another notable initiative is the Battery Pass project. An industry-led consortium of experts from leading organizations across the battery value chain launched a digital system to manage battery lifecycles. The Battery Pass project seeks to advance the implementation of the EU battery passport, aligned with the new battery regulations. The consortium aligns with other initiatives such as the GBA, CIRPASS, BATRAW, and BatWoMan to integrate different perspectives.
The goal of the battery passport is to support the sustainable and circular management of batteries by providing a digital infrastructure for documentation and exchange of valuable business and sustainability information.
In the future, this information will be used to transparently present the entire lifecycle and value creation process, enabling the design of production and value creation processes according to circular principles.1
CIRPASS Project
Funded by the European Commission, the collaborative initiative for a standards-based digital product passport (CIRPASS) project consists of 31 consortium partners from academia and industry. The objective is to develop roadmaps for DPP prototypes focused on three value chains: batteries, electronics, and textiles. The goal is to establish shared rules, definitions, and principles to conceptualize cross-sectoral DPPs and support a circular economy. CIRPASS brings together many of the essential competencies, from cybersecurity to web technologies.
BatWoMan Project
BatWoMan develops new sustainable and cost-efficient lithium-ion battery cell production concepts, paving the way toward carbon-neutral cell production within the EU. Three main technological efforts will be supported digitally through creating an AI-driven, innovative platform for smart re-tooling, constantly monitoring the sustainability and efficiency of the proposed individual production steps and developing a battery data space providing relevant cell background data.2
BATRAW Project
The BATRAW project aims to boost the recycling of end-of-life (EOL) battery packs for domestic raw material supply chains and enhanced circular economy and seeks to develop new technological processes for the recovery of critical raw materials (CRMs) contained in EV batteries. The four-year project, coordinated by the Technological Centre LEITAT (Spain), also involves 16 other partners from seven different countries.3
PLM’s Role in Preparing for Digital Battery Passports
While preparing for DBP takes planning, information mapping is vital to give organizations a comprehensive understanding of what information is needed and where it resides, especially if it’s on spreadsheets, documents, or across siloed systems. Mapping provides a 360 view of the supply chain and system interoperability. This level of detail enables management and teams to connect people and systems to define roles and DBP responsibilities.
As a single source of product information, PLM software manages a product throughout its entire lifecycle, treating the product lifecycle as a continuous process with integrated decision-making at every stage. A PLM system provides a centralized record of the information needed to support digital battery passport requirements.
Companies use PLM software and practices to support DBP compliance by:
- Increasing transparency in the supply chains for faster decision making
- Innovating new ways to recycle/reuse that’ll drive the circular economy
- Managing product information and associated data in a single source
- Tracking the entire lifecycle of a battery from raw material extraction to recycling
- Managing DBP attributes to meet current EU regulations
- Restructuring processes and process requirements to be more sustainable
Arena PLM: Single Source for Your DBP Information
As companies discover how PLM helps them aggregate DBP information and transition toward a circular economy, Arena is ready to help you drive innovation. With real-time information sharing and flexible integrations, Arena programmatically gets DBP-related information from other systems—like CAD, ERP, MES, LCA—fast and accurately.
Arena PLM links new product development, quality activities, and change processes to the complete product record and manages all your revision-controlled information including the information you make publicly available to support transparency.
Laying the Groundwork for a Sustainable, Circular Battery Ecosystem
European companies are navigating a complex landscape of sustainability, digital infrastructure, and circular economy initiatives, all while preparing for the EU’s 2026 DPP regulation. The goal of DPP, along with the industry-specific digital battery passport (DBP), is to enhance transparency and accountability across battery products and value chains. This will enable responsible purchasing decisions by providing detailed information on product origins, materials, carbon footprints, supply chains, and more.
Key initiatives like the GBA, Battery Pass Project, CIRPASS, BatWoMan, and BATRAW are at the forefront of developing and standardizing these passports. They focus on creating sustainable, circular battery value chains, improving recycling processes, and ensuring compliance with new regulations.
Likewise, PLM solutions play a crucial role in consolidating and managing the necessary information to meet these requirements, driving innovation and supporting the transition to a circular economy.
As these efforts continue to evolve, they promise to significantly impact the sustainability and efficiency of battery production and usage, aligning with broader EU goals for environmental responsibility and resource management.
To learn more how Arena can help you navigate the new passport requirements, get started with our latest ebook, A Practical Guide to the Digital Product Passport.
Sources
General source: https://cdn.ceps.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1qp5rxiZ-CEPS-InDepthAnalysis-2024-05_Implementing-the-EU-digital-battery-passport.pdf
Joseph Prock