Chapter 07 · Materials & footprintsCircular Economy & Materials
Battery passport
Definition
A digital product passport for batteries, required under the EU Batteries Regulation (2023/1542) and built on the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation's DPP technical system. From 18 February 2027, every electric vehicle battery, light-means-of-transport battery and industrial battery above 2 kWh placed on the EU market must carry a passport accessible via QR code.
References
Scope of covered battery categories; 18 Feb 2027 mandatory date; QR-code link; tiered information; decentralised system and registry timeline.
Phased obligations (carbon footprint 2025/26, passport 2027, due diligence Aug 2027, recycled content 2028); carbon footprint metric definition.
Overview
What it means
The passport holds battery identification and technical characteristics, manufacturer information, performance and durability data, sustainability information (carbon footprint in kg CO₂e per kWh delivered over service life, recycled content), and data supporting repair, reuse and recycling.
Access is tiered: public users, market-surveillance authorities, and actors with a legitimate interest (repairers, recyclers, second-life operators) see different fields. It is the first mandatory Digital Product Passport — the model later extends to textiles, steel, furniture and electronics.
How it is used
The economic operator placing the battery on the market creates and maintains the passport; the EU's decentralised DPP Registry (operational from July 2026) indexes where each battery's data lives. Related obligations phase in around it: carbon footprint declarations from 2025, supply-chain due diligence from August 2027, recycled-content disclosure from 2028.
Why it matters
The passport turns circular-economy ambition into data infrastructure: second-life valuation, recycling, due diligence on cobalt/lithium/nickel/graphite, and carbon claims all depend on it. It sets the template for product-level traceability globally.