Sustainability challenges in the value chains of battery minerals

To address the climate change issue, a global transition from the current “brown economy” to a “green economy” is imperative. The realization of this worldwide ambition necessitates large-scale electrification which leads to a growing demand for lithium-ion batteries as energy storage technologies. The developing market of batteries requires significant mineral and metal inputs. However, there are diverse challenges, rooted in different stages of a battery value chain, in meeting the escalating demand for battery metals and minerals. These challenges consist of, for example, various uncertainties; the need for building institutional and knowledge capacity; environmental, social, economic, and governance issues; and geopolitical tensions. These challenges can hinder the uninterrupted supply of battery raw materials and propagate through the whole battery value chain affecting all involved stakeholders. This fact reinforces the global concern over how to enhance the resilience of supply for each battery raw material, while upholding sustainable development goals. The aim of this research work is to contribute to the development of the knowledge domains that are considered prerequisites to the supply sustainability of battery minerals and a real green transition. Here, considering the entire value chain of a lithium-ion battery, the approaches adopted by regulatory agencies, governments, mining companies, and vehicle and battery manufacturers are evaluated. The objectives of this evaluation are to discern and categorize gaps and opportunities in the implemented strategies, to identify key criteria for resilient and sustainable battery mineral value chain, and to analyze the roles of various actors in global mineral supply chains during the transition to a green economy. These assessments are accompanied by the analyses of the factors threatening the primary supply of the selected battery raw materials including lithium, cobalt, graphite, and nickel. The purpose of these in-depth analyses is to comprehend the interplay between mine production of each individual battery raw material and a multitude of risks and uncertainties, which is a valuable asset to supply chain management. Moreover, another objective of this work is to predict the future mining production of the selected battery raw materials in twenty years ahead. To achieve this, three time series forecasting techniques namely Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average, Holt’s linear trend methods, and Holt-Winters techniques are Utilized. Predicting the future regional and global mining production of battery raw materials provides decision makers with a knowledge platform about the dynamics of supply security in the future. This platform can also help the stakeholders engaged in the different stages of a battery value chain to adopt sound strategies to minimize the probability of demand and supply imbalance in the future.