Circular economy strategies for electric vehicle batteries reduce reliance on raw materials

Joris Baars, Teresa Domenech, Raimund Bleischwitz, Hans Eric Melin and Oliver Heidrich ()
Additional contact information
Joris Baars: Newcastle University
Teresa Domenech: University College London
Raimund Bleischwitz: University College London
Hans Eric Melin: Circular Energy Storage Research and Consulting
Oliver Heidrich: Newcastle University

Nature Sustainability, 2021, vol. 4, issue 1, 71-79

Abstract: Abstract The wide adoption of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles will require increased natural resources for the automotive industry. The expected rapid increase in batteries could result in new resource challenges and supply-chain risks. To strengthen the resilience and sustainability of automotive supply chains and reduce primary resource requirements, circular economy strategies are needed. Here we illustrate how these strategies can reduce the extraction of primary raw materials, that is, cobalt supplies. Material flow analysis is applied to understand current and future flows of cobalt embedded in electric vehicle batteries across the European Union. A reference scenario is presented and compared with four strategies: technology-driven substitution and technology-driven reduction of cobalt, new business models to stimulate battery reuse/recycling and policy-driven strategy to increase recycling. We find that new technologies provide the most promising strategies to reduce the reliance on cobalt substantially but could result in burden shifting such as an increase in nickel demand. To avoid the latter, technological developments should be combined with an efficient recycling system. We conclude that more-ambitious circular economy strategies, at both government and business levels, are urgently needed to address current and future resource challenges across the supply chain successfully.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (38)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00607-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natsus:v:4:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41893-020-00607-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/natsustain/

DOI: 10.1038/s41893-020-00607-0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Sustainability is currently edited by Monica Contestabile

More articles in Nature Sustainability from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().