The quest for more circular battery value chains: Implementing the EU digital battery passport and remaining challenges

Digital technologies have been increasingly adopted to facilitate the adoption of circular economy. A prominent example is the Digital Product Passport (DPP), designed to enhance product sustainability by collecting and disclosing comprehensive lifecycle information. International efforts toward the DPP include systems in the US, EU and China which leverage digital technologies to enhance products traceability, circularity, and sustainability across various industries. A DPP for batteries (DBP - Digital Battery Passport) is currently being implemented under the EU Battery Regulation and is entering into force in the European market in February 2027. Past studies have examined DPPs’ data requirements, principles, and challenges, but few have assessed their effectiveness in fostering circularity, and none have evaluated their role in the development of a circular battery sector in Europe. This study explored whether DBP’s potential circularity benefits are valid or compromised by implementation challenges and practical limitations. 35 industry stakeholders were interviewed, and literature and policy documents reviewed. The findings indicated that the DBP supports the emergence of circular battery value chains and facilitates both re-use and recycling. However, while data for recycling is easier to provide, the information needed for re-use is seen by stakeholders as posing availability and intellectual property challenges. This ties in with additional biases in the EU Battery Regulation that potentially favor recycling (i.e., targets for recycled content and recovered materials). Facilitating recycling over re-use is sub-optimal from an environmental perspective, and the article suggested a set of solutions to the DBP’s challenges, including for the recycling bias. • Data for recycling is easier to collect and disclose than the one for re-use. • Identified the challenges of the Digital Battery Passport’s circularity criteria. • Recognized a bias towards recycling that facilitates the adoption of this practice. • Assessed Digital Battery Passport role in favoring the adoption of circularity. • Definition of strategies to overcome Digital Battery Passport’s challenges.