Life cycle engineering for battery production within absolute environmental sustainability targets: a climate change case study

Battery production is growing rapidly, yet whether its environmental impacts remain within planetary boundaries requires investigation. We develop a four-step life cycle engineering framework integrating 1) prospective and probabilistic target derivation, 2) parametric and prospective life cycle assessment, 3) Sobol index-based selection of mitigation measures, and 4) marginal abatement cost curves for cost-effectiveness evaluation. The framework builds on a review of 28 studies and 36 reviews, addressing six of the seven identified research demands. Applied to NMC811 battery production under three SSP-RCP scenarios and two allocation principles (2024–2050), current impacts (138 kg CO₂-eq/kWh) exceed the SSP2-RCP2.6 justice-based and grandfathering targets by factors of 6.2 and 1.9, respectively. Under SSP2-RCP2.6, combined foreground and background improvements reduce impacts by 75% to 34 kg CO₂-eq/kWh by 2050. Sixteen mitigation measures are derived to reach net-zero; 70 kg CO₂-eq/kWh can be abated at negative marginal costs, yielding net savings of €70/kWh (−51%).