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Published - 23 September 2025 - 5 min read

Challenges and Opportunities in Establishing a Global Digital Battery Passport System

The idea of a global Digital Battery Passport (DBP) is compelling. Imagine a single, unified system that makes battery data traceable, sustainability claims verifiable, ensures compliance with international battery safety standards and makes circular economies possible across borders.

However, the path towards a global Digital Battery Passport system is no small task. It involves addressing significant regulatory, technological, and economic challenges. From navigating regulatory differences to addressing data fragmentation, the journey toward a global DBP is filled with both significant challenges and transformative opportunities.

Different Rules, Same Batteries: A Patchwork of Global Regulations

One of the most pressing challenges in establishing a global DBP is the lack of regulatory alignment across countries. The European Union has taken a clear lead, integrating the Digital Battery Passport as a key component of its updated Battery Regulation.

However, other major players in the battery value chain - such as the United States, China, South Korea, and Japan - have adopted very different approaches, with some still in the early stages of drafting relevant policies.

As a result, manufacturers and battery producers operating internationally are faced with a fragmented legal landscape. For example, one market may require detailed ESG reporting, another may prioritise safety and technical documentation, while a third focuses on critical raw materials or carbon footprint disclosures.

This patchwork of requirements not only creates confusion but also raises compliance costs and the risk of market exclusion. Without some level of harmonisation or mutual recognition, global players may find themselves duplicating efforts or struggling to meet the requirements of multiple systems.

Data Silos and Technical Gaps: It’s Not Just About the Regulations

Beyond regulations, the technical challenges are just as complex - if not more so. Battery-related data is generated and stored across a wide range of actors: miners, cell producers, OEMs, recyclers, logistics providers, and second-life users.

Each of these actors uses different digital systems, different formats, and different levels of detail. This creates data silos that make it hard to track a battery’s full lifecycle in any coherent way.

To function globally, a DBP system must be able to speak to these different systems. That means adopting shared data standards, enabling secure and consistent exchange protocols, and building trust between companies and countries.

Data privacy, intellectual property protection, and cybersecurity are all essential considerations - especially when sensitive performance, safety, or sourcing data is shared across borders. Interoperability is not just a technical goal; it is about establishing the trust and consistency needed for a global ecosystem to work smoothly.

Blockchain Technology and Data Security

Emerging tools such as blockchain technology offer solutions to many of these challenges. Blockchain provides decentralised, tamper-resistant ledgers that can ensure secure, verifiable, and transparent data exchange.

By enhancing trust between stakeholders, blockchain could make DBPs more reliable and globally interoperable. Additionally, it can safeguard sensitive information, such as sourcing and performance data, while enabling selective sharing with authorised partners.

Turning Challenges into Opportunities: Why the Global DBP System Matters

Despite the obstacles, the potential benefits of a global Digital Battery Passport system are too important to ignore.

Environmental Impact and Sustainability Potential

The environmental benefits of a global DBP system are substantial. By standardising data on material composition and recycling potential, DBPs can enable better design for disassembly, improve recovery of critical raw materials like lithium and cobalt, and significantly reduce the environmental impact of battery disposal.

In addition, DBPs support carbon footprint reduction through transparent lifecycle analysis. Manufacturers, regulators, and consumers can access accurate data on emissions linked to production, transport, and use, making it possible to set clearer targets for improvement. This level of transparency could accelerate the adoption of greener practices across the battery industry.

Battery Safety Standards on a Global Scale

Battery safety remains one of the most critical concerns in manufacturing, transport, and recycling. A global DBP could integrate uniform battery safety standards, ensuring that all actors along the supply chain have access to up-to-date safety information. This would help prevent accidents, reduce risks in shipping and storage, and ensure safer conditions for workers involved in recycling and repurposing.

A global DBP could also make recycling far more efficient. If recyclers had access to detailed, standardised information about battery chemistry, design, and component location, they could optimise disassembly and material recovery. This would reduce waste and increase the recovery of critical raw materials - especially lithium, cobalt, and nickel.

International Trade Implications

Global trade in batteries is expected to grow rapidly as electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy storage scale up. For global brands and manufacturers, a standardised DBP offers the chance to prove their ESG credentials using verifiable, traceable data. This strengthens the credibility of sustainability claims, reduces greenwashing, and improves investor confidence.

For exporters, this could mean easier access to foreign markets. For regulators, it could reduce administrative burden by enabling equivalence between regions and making compliance efforts easier, improving trust in imported products.

However, uneven adoption between regions could also pose challenges, as countries with less stringent requirements may delay the benefits of global harmonisation.

Consumer Education and Behaviour Change

A shared framework could enable faster development of second-life battery markets, as buyers would have clear visibility into a battery’s health, usage history, and remaining value. This transparency could dramatically improve trust in second-hand or repurposed batteries and make refurbishment or reuse a more commercially viable option.

What It Will Take to Build a Global DBP?

Reaching this global vision will take time, but it is achievable with coordinated effort. One of the most important enablers will be international standard-setting. Bodies such as ISO, IEC, and UNECE can play a critical role in aligning data structures, certification schemes, and technical definitions.

Regional frameworks like the EU’s Battery Regulation can serve as early examples or benchmarks for others to follow or adapt.

Technologically, the future lies in open, modular solutions. Rather than trying to build one massive global platform, developers can focus on creating flexible, API-driven tools that work across systems, allowing actors to plug in where it makes sense. Such modularity helps future-proof the system and allows adaptation over time.

Just as importantly, stakeholder collaboration between the public and private sectors will be key. Policymakers, industry leaders, NGOs, and tech innovators must work together to create incentives for adoption, investment in infrastructure, and support for smaller players. Shared incentives - whether access to new markets, improved efficiency, or reduced regulatory burden - will be essential to encourage global participation and commitment.

The Role of the BASE Project


Within Europe, the BASE EU Project is advancing the development of a trusted and interoperable Digital Battery Passport framework. BASE focuses on lifecycle analysis, carbon footprint assessment, and circularity indicators that support the reduction of environmental impact while ensuring compliance with EU regulations.

By developing open, modular tools and engaging stakeholders across the value chain, BASE is contributing to the foundations that could support eventual global harmonisation of DBPs.

Closing Thoughts

In the end, the challenge of building a global Digital Battery Passport is a challenge of collaboration. Different countries, different sectors, and different systems must find ways to connect and cooperate around a common goal: a more sustainable, traceable, and circular battery economy. It is ambitious - but within reach. And the time to start building those bridges is now.

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