Regionalized life cycle assessment of NMC and LFP batteries across China-EU supply chain configurations under the EU Battery Regulation

The EU Battery Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 introduces stringent life cycle carbon footprint requirements that are expected to influence the regional organization of battery production. However, the carbon footprint implications of alternative China-EU supply chain configurations remain insufficiently understood. This study develops a regionalized life cycle assessment framework to evaluate the life cycle carbon footprints of lithium nickel‑manganese‑cobalt (NMC) and lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries under alternative regional supply chain configurations between China and the EU. The analysis follows the latest EU methodological guidance and combines proprietary industrial data from leading Chinese electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturers. The boundary analysis showed that the calculated carbon footprints were sensitive to the life cycle stages included. Under the EU baseline, the carbon footprints of NMC and LFP batteries were 96.2 and 51.6 gCO 2 e/kWh under the Directive 91/157/EEC-informed reference boundary, 95.9 and 81.3 gCO 2 e/kWh under the Directive 2006/66/EC-informed reference boundary, and 142.9 and 128.3 gCO 2 e/kWh under the Regulation (EU) 2023/1542-aligned full life cycle boundary, respectively. Scenario analysis further indicated that regional supply chain reconfiguration can substantially narrow carbon footprint differences relative to Baseline-EU. For NMC batteries, the difference decreased from 59.3 gCO 2 e/kWh under the export (EX) scenario to 49.3 and 47.7 gCO 2 e/kWh under the overseas battery production (TB) scenario and partial material pre-processing in the EU (TBM) scenario, respectively. For LFP batteries, the corresponding values decreased from 74.1 to 49.4 and 47.1 gCO 2 e/kWh. These findings suggest that the regulatory context may encourage supply chain configurations with lower life cycle carbon footprints by altering the regional allocation of production stages. The findings highlight the importance of aligning regional production characteristics with decarbonization potential and provide policy-relevant evidence for coordinated China-EU battery supply chain strategies.