Environmental and socio-economic challenges in battery supply chains: graphite and lithium

The European Commission set a clear goal with the Green Deal to establish a transition towards a greener economy with the transport sector being one of the main pillars. A key ingredient are lithiumion batteries required for the uptake of electric vehicles. The Green Deal underlines the goals formulated in the Strategic Action Plan on Batteries. Establishing a battery value chain in Europe including cell manufacturing is a key component towards a greener economy (European Commission 2019a, 2019b).
The collaborative research project Fab4Lib funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, investigates innovative solutions along the value chain of lithium-ion technology and to validate them in demonstrators in preparation for a cell manufacturing in Germany. Within the project the Oeko-Institut already published a report on the development of the demand of raw materials needed for the electric vehicle (EV) uptake (Buchert et al. 2019). In this short study Oeko-Institut will highlight some of the environmental and socio-economic challenges of graphite and lithium in the upstream.