Sustainable Battery Value Chains are a Systems Level Opportunity

February 18, 2026

Insights from the GBA dialogue series 

Kaisa Toroskainen, Pramoda Gode and Creta Gambillara 

At the GBA Annual General Meeting in December 2025, members, partners and country delegations came together to translate system-level insights on circular economy, harmonisation of battery standards, and reducing barriers to entry in global battery value chains, into concrete action. 

The Global Battery Alliance (GBA) is best known for its flagship Battery Passport programme. But we would be amiss to not share insights from the lively dialogues hosted under its sister programme, the Circularity and Critical Minerals Advisory Group (CCMAG).  

Why the CCMAG dialogue series? The battery sector is moving from voluntary commitments to binding regulatory frameworks and enforceable market expectations, with due diligence, traceability, and circularity requirements increasingly determining market access, compliance risk and competitiveness across jurisdictions. In 2025, CCMAG convened a series of expert-led dialogues bringing international organisations, industry leaders, researchers, and policymakers to explore new trends and increasingly intertwined priorities with GBA members: circularity, critical minerals and traceability.  

These dialogues help translate emerging policy, technology, and market trends into shared priorities and practical collaboration - ensuring that sustainability becomes a competitive advantage rather than a fragmented compliance burden, and that collective action can accelerate progress across the entire value chain. In this blog, we recap the lessons learned from these dialogues and how they inform our work in 2026 from system design, traceability, through the life cycle, considerations for the artisanal and small-scale mining sector, to the international partnerships required. 

Designing the system: From recycled materials to circular battery design 

Why this dialogue? Circularity is increasingly a business and supply security imperative: without better design, batteries will continue to drive growing demand for primary critical minerals, increasing cost exposure, geopolitical risk, and environmental pressure. Designing batteries for reuse, repair, and recycling is one of the most scalable levers to reduce lifecycle emissions and material waste while strengthening long-term resilience of supply.  

The journey towards circularity begins in the design phase. A dialogue on Circular Battery Value Chains, underpinned by analysis from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and experts from EUCOBAT and Cling Systems, explored how circularity can reduce pressure on primary mineral supply while supporting the energy transition.  

Speakers emphasised that real progress depends on aligning policy, product design, and end-of-life systems. This theme was taken further in the dialogue on Battery Design as a Critical Enabler of Circularity, where the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and  Argonne National Laboratory underscored that circularity must be embedded at the design stage through benchmarks on durability, modularity, repairability, and recyclability.  

“Circular Economy is not an end-of-life challenge - it is a design challenge.”  
- Wen-Yu Weng, Executive Lead - Critical Minerals, Ellen MacArthur Foundation 

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) rules illustrate the shift toward lifecycle thinking: from an end-of-life directive to a full life-cycle regulatory framework. While the EU Batteries Regulation reframes responsibility across the full value chain, analysis shared by EUCOBAT highlighted persistent challenges around brand- and chemistry-agnostic take-back schemes, financial risk allocation, and uneven readiness across markets.  

To make circularity work in practice, speakers pointed to the need for harmonised international standards and reliable data for secondary materials. Data tools such as the emerging ISO 59014: Environmental management and circular economy standard for recycled content and chain of custody presented by the World Resources Forum ​and UNITAR’s Global Battery Monitor​ can help scale responsible recycling aligned with regulatory expectations. 

But designing for circularity is only effective if materials and impacts can be reliably tracked across the value chain - bringing the question of traceability to the forefront.  

Making the system visible: Traceability and data 

Why this dialogue? Traceability is rapidly becoming a market expectation and regulatory requirement. It is also a tool to improve transparency, manage risk, and enable credible sustainability claims. Without interoperable traceability systems, the battery sector faces rising compliance burdens, reputational risk, and fragmentation across jurisdictions - undermining both competitiveness and sustainability outcomes. 

Traceability is increasingly demanded by regulators and markets seeking insight into cradle-to-gate battery production. Experts from the IEA, OECD, and SAE International examined traceability as a strategic tool to manage risk and support responsible sourcing, acknowledging that full physical traceability remains—for now—unrealistic across complex battery supply chains. 

Instead, discussions are converging on risk-based approaches, harmonised standards, and interoperable chain of custody systems as a practical path forward. Traceability, participants agreed, must support impact and risk management - not become a compliance exercise detached from operational realities. At both company and country levels, traceability systems are beginning to take shape. Mining countries are advancing national traceability initiatives as highlighted at the 7th UN Environment Assembly, while companies increasingly align internal systems with emerging regulatory expectations. 

“Traceability should serve impact and risk management - not become a compliance exercise detached from reality.”  
International Energy Agency (IEA) and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 

Yet traceability systems are only as credible as their ability to reflect on-the-ground realities, particularly in complex upstream contexts, often involving artisanal and small-scale mining. 

Creating inclusive systems: Turning artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) from risk to asset 

Why this dialogue? ASM is an important source of critical minerals and livelihoods, yet it is often associated with high ESG risk and limited visibility. Engaging ASM responsibly is essential not only to avoid exclusion and unintended harm, but also to build supply chains that reflect real upstream conditions—strengthening due diligence, supporting local development, and improving the credibility of responsible sourcing commitments. 

Focused on one of the most complex and consequential parts of the battery value chain, we asked the Impact Facility, Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM) and European Partnership for Responsible Minerals (EPRM), how responsible sourcing can better reflect ASM realities and opportunities on the ground. Often portrayed a conflict minerals issue, speakers shared insights on the crucial role of ASM in Africa’s critical minerals supply, reflected on lessons learned from implementing ASM standards, and presented practical tools that support responsible and reliable supply chains. 

Participants agreed that progress depends on targeted support, credible engagement approaches, and collaboration across stakeholders, rather than one-size-fits-all requirements. 

“Responsible ASM approaches require engagement of actors from across the ecosystem as well as practical tools and support that meets producers where they are.”  
European Partnership for Responsible Minerals (EPRM) 

These discussions reinforced that inclusion is not only a social imperative, but a system requirement: traceability, due diligence, and circularity efforts cannot succeed without meaningful engagement with upstream realities and incentives from the downstream. The question then becomes how these system-expectations translate across borders and national contexts. 

Making the system work across borders: Bridging global standards and producing country priorities 

Why this dialogue? Battery sustainability requirements are increasingly shaped by downstream markets, but implementation depends on alignment with producing countries’ development priorities and regulatory realities. Without two-way dialogue and capacity-building, ESG and due diligence frameworks risk becoming barriers to trade - whereas coordinated approaches can unlock investment, strengthen governance, and support shared economic benefits across the value chain. 

Insights from the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) and UNIDO’s Critical Minerals Market Assessment highlighted how technological advancement and investment can support sustainable development in producing and emerging economies, while also strengthening supply security for the battery value chain.  

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) examined how ESG and due diligence frameworks can support national development priorities without creating barriers to market access. GIZ and Levin Sources shared results from a survey of engagement and capacity building needs in Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, and Zambia, followed by reflections from representatives of the Zambian and Indonesian governments. The findings and speakers underscored that international due diligence requirements can enable harmonisation and capacity building, but only if they “meet in the middle” with producing countries’ development priorities. 

“By embedding our mineral economy in an alliance that prioritizes ESG standards, traceability, and fair labour practices, we gain access to a global ecosystem that rewards sustainability, ethical sourcing, and long-term value creation.” 
Government of Zambia 

Taken together, the CCMAG dialogues illustrate that sustainable battery value chains are not built through isolated interventions, but through interconnected systems - designed for circularity, made visible through traceability, grounded in upstream realities, and aligned with national priorities.  

Turning insight into implementation: From dialogue to 2026 priorities 

The CCMAG plays a critical role in the GBA ecosystem by complementing the GBA’s flagship programme, the Battery Passport. It creates a space for dialogue on emerging policy, technology and market trends and their impact on battery value chains, ensuring the GBA is leading the change transforming value chains from linear to circular. Looking ahead to 2026, the GBA will build on this momentum to reinforce circularity as a lever for security of supply, advance practical approaches to traceability and due diligence, and deepen engagement with producing countries – and foster dialogue on emerging themes. 

How will the Battery Passport take insight into implementation? The Battery Passport is rapidly scaling toward the world’s first sustainability certification for batteries--one that reflects system-level thinking, shared responsibility, and pragmatic implementation. It offers a common framework to support interoperability, transparency, and credible reporting across markets, backed by the Battery Benchmarks’ aligned due diligence and performance criteria on responsible sourcing, circularity, and more. Supporting system-level solutions from embedding circularity in design, strengthening traceability and risk management, ensuring responsible upstream engagement and enabling producing countries to participate meaningfully in emerging regulatory and market requirements are in its core: 

• Embedding circularity: The Battery Benchmarks are designed to support due diligence of recycled materials and operationalise circular economy principles, and the Battery Passport enables reporting on recycled content alongside sustainability data. The GBA’s pilot Circular Design rulebook can be developed into a global handbook for good practice gathering insights on design choices, regulatory clarity, and lifecycle responsibility.  

• Progressive traceability: The Battery Passport chain of custody model is interoperable with chain of custody models, enabling compliance with traceability requirements of the EU Batteries Regulation and other jurisdictions such as US country of origin rules, while providing incentives for increased transparency in line with expectations of investors and downstream clients. 

• Inclusive scaling of BVCs: The Battery Benchmarks are built through multi-stakeholder engagement, creating trust by including artisanal mining realities, producing country perspectives and other stakeholder views. Future Benchmarking modules will draw on past and upcoming CCMAG insights to include responsible engagement with ASM producers, local value addition, and nature-positive approaches.  
• Piloting of the Battery Passport strengthens preparedness, resilience and security of supply, and generates lessons to raise awareness and embed good practices into local realities. 

Join the GBA to engage in the 2026 dialogues, share experiences, learn from experts and partners and help shape the next phase of sustainable battery value chains.