Measuring progress towards a verifiable net-zero with the GBA Battery Passport Greenhouse Gas rulebook

December 01, 2025

by Tareq Alsaleh, Operational Trials Coordinator - Global Battery Alliance 

As global leaders convened at COP to accelerate climate action, a striking gap continues to emerge: batteries rarely feature as a central theme in the formal agenda despite being foundational to the global energy transition. Their limited visibility even in spaces dedicated to accelerating decarbonisation reveals a disconnect between high-level ambition and the technical realities required to achieve it. Delivering credible climate outcomes relies on measurable, comparable, and verifiable data, yet many of the systems needed to generate such information across complex industrial value chains are still developing. Against this backdrop, the decarbonisation of batteries becomes not simply a technical undertaking but a test of global readiness for transparent and science-based climate action. The conversations at COP frequently highlight the urgency of accelerating the transition, although the uneven maturity of data and reporting systems makes it difficult for countries and industries to substantiate the progress they claim. This gap reinforces the importance of placing batteries more firmly within the climate agenda, given their role at the intersection of industrial policy, clean energy deployment, and supply chain transformation. Their carbon footprint has become an essential indicator of whether climate ambition can translate into credible, verifiable action. In this wider landscape, expectations for stronger data integrity and accountability are accelerating across policy, industry, and finance. These pressures are not limited to any single framework but reflect a broader movement towards evidence-based climate action that demands transparency, traceability, and consistency across global supply chains.

From April to October 2025, during my fellowship with the Global Battery Alliance (GBA) Battery Passport programme, I had the opportunity to explore this challenge in depth. This period was particularly significant as it aligned with GBA’s ongoing work to strengthen its benchmarking framework and update the GHG Rulebook, a cornerstone of the Battery Passport. The timing also coincided with an evolving global policy landscape, where initiatives such as the SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard, the Land Transport Guidance, and the draft Automotive Sector Net-Zero Standard were setting new expectations for the quality and transparency of emissions data. Together, these developments highlighted a clear shift: companies could no longer rely on generalised assumptions or estimates but needed robust, auditable data to validate their decarbonisation efforts,

While working on the GBA’s flagship Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Rulebook v2.1, I began to appreciate how transformative its impact could be. Seeing the framework evolve up close made it clear that the GBA Battery Passport was far more than a reporting mechanism. It represented the foundation of a transparent, data-driven approach to climate accountability, one capable of providing the high-quality, verifiable data needed to measure and accelerate real progress towards net-zero goals. Through this experience, I came to understand how the Rulebook connects the technical and strategic dimensions of decarbonisation, helping bridge ambition with practical, measurable outcomes across the entire battery value chain. This understanding naturally led me to reflect on the broader landscape of climate accountability and the growing global emphasis on transparency, comparability, and trust in data-driven decision-making. Companies across industries are now expected to substantiate their climate actions with evidence, not just intent, which is reshaping how progress is measured and validated.

In this evolving environment, one framework has become particularly influential in defining what credible corporate climate action looks like: the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). It has set the benchmark for ambition and rigour, raising expectations for how emissions are measured, reported, and verified. Within the GBA context, the SBTi is also referenced as a level AAA benchmark for good practice reporting in the Greenhouse Gas and Energy Efficiency module of the Battery Benchmarks, which reflects the extent to which it now serves as a reference point for credible and transparent corporate climate disclosure. Understanding the SBTi’s data expectations is therefore key to recognising the value of the GBA framework. The credibility of corporate net-zero targets hinges entirely on the quality and completeness of their Scope 3 emissions inventory, which accounts for the indirect emissions generated across the value chain. 

Recognising that Scope 3 emissions often dominate total corporate footprints, particularly in manufacturing sectors like automotive, the SBTi has consistently tightened its requirements for disclosure and reduction. The SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard, for example, requires companies to compile a complete Scope 3 inventory. Near-term targets must cover at least 67% of Scope 3 emissions when these emissions represent 40% or more of total emissions, a threshold that increases to 90% for long-term targets. Crucially, the standard emphasises that mere boundary coverage is insufficient; companies must collect high-quality primary data from suppliers and value chain partners.

For EV automakers, the battery pack represents the largest single emissions hotspot within Scope 3 Category 1. Generic, spend-based estimates have historically allowed companies to mask high-emitting processes deeper in the supply chain. The SBTi guidance actively pushes companies to move beyond such proxies, demanding supplier-specific, verified data for these high-impact categories to ensure targets reflect genuine operational change. This stringent demand for primary data serves a critical function: mitigating the risk of greenwashing and reinforcing the credibility of corporate climate commitments.

To appreciate the Rulebook’s practical importance, it is also necessary to consider the evolving sector-specific standards that amplify the data challenge. The SBTi Land Transport Guidance (2024), for instance, imposes an absolute requirement for automakers to cover 100% of use-phase emissions on a Well-to-Wheel (WTW) basis. Achieving this 100% coverage necessitates the seamless integration of manufacturing emissions data with operational emissions data, ensuring that the target is both comprehensive and aligned with absolute emission reduction consistent with the 1.5°C pathway.

Building on this, the Draft Automotive Sector Net-Zero Standard (Draft 2025) introduces the concept of aggregated emission intensity. This innovative metric mathematically combines the “fuel-cycle” emissions and the “vehicle-cycle” (manufacturing and end-of-life; Scopes 1–2, and Scope 3) emissions into a single indicator.

The strategic implication is profound. It signals that EV automakers can no longer focus on operational efficiency while neglecting supply chain decarbonisation. Since the GBA Rulebook specifically covers the “vehicle-cycle” component, the manufacturing efficiency of the battery is now structurally and mathematically linked to the overall climate performance of the vehicle in the eyes of the SBTi. 

This linkage ensures that investment in supply chain decarbonisation, which is the very core of the GBA’s mission, becomes a non-negotiable prerequisite for meeting the sector’s highest climate goals.

The Battery Passport is increasingly positioned at the heart of credible climate action, offering the transparency and verifiability that global frameworks now expect. The observations shared here focus on the broader narrative, the strategic implications, and the shifting expectations shaping the battery value chain. For readers interested in exploring the technical underpinnings in more detail, including how the GHG Rulebook v2.1 maps against specific SBTi requirements and sectoral guidance, a separate short note titled “How the GBA GHG Rulebook Aligns with SBTi Frameworks” provides a structured overview of that alignment. It distils the key methodological elements, compliance pathways, and data mechanisms, offering a deeper look at the technical architecture behind the Battery Passport’s role in supporting verifiable net-zero progress.