Comparison of lithium-ion battery supply chains – a life cycle sustainability assessment

The increasing number of electric vehicles worldwide leads to various challenges, especially in terms of battery supply chains. New battery production sites, raw material refiners, and extraction sites will be needed to fulfill the future battery demand. Additionally, the planned European Battery Directive requires battery manufacturers to meet defined CO2-limits and social standards to enter the European market. However, depending on the design of battery supply chains, environmental and socio-economic impacts can vary considerably. Especially the selection of suppliers as well as production locations and processes can have a major influence. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate battery supply chain options to highlight the differences and trade-offs related to the three sustainability dimensions. For this purpose, a life cycle sustainability assessment is conducted, considering a baseline scenario depicting the global average production shares, and three additional scenarios to investigate the influence of locations on three processes along the supply chain. The results provide insights into the design of sustainable battery supply chains. It is shown how different locations and battery types affect the indicator scores of the investigated supply chains. Furthermore, the results indicate distinct trade-offs between the three sustainability dimensions and underline the necessity for the subsequent use of multi-criteria decision-making models to derive recommendations for designing sustainable battery supply chains.