• Improve conditions & facilitate batteries’ safe collection, storage and transport across the EU’s internal market, establish a secure and controlled end-of-life path for all batteries

• Create a dynamic and competitive internal market for battery recycling to make closing the loop a win-win

• Do not impose minimum recycled content levels in new batteries as long as insufficient data is available, and in a first step consider requiring to maximise recycled content instead

• Limit overall regulatory burden for an innovative, fast-paced sector; make provisions fair vis-à-vis competing sectors, in particular the fossil fuel industry

• Extend supply chain due diligence obligations to other sectors – notably fossil fuels – and give sufficient time for actors to adapt

• Maintain open battery design to avoid lock-in effects, encourage innovation and ensure optimal battery use, performance and lifetime

• Limit sharing of critical battery information to necessary data and actors

• Make carbon footprint declarations meaningful and comparable, provide flexibility in declaring carbon footprint of batteries & adapt obligations to volumes placed on the market

• Ensure provisions are credibly enforceable, also outside the EU, to ensure a level playing field for EU-made batteries and prevent hidden exported emissions.

We therefore recommend to:

• Regularly review recycling efficiency objectives and metal recovery rates based on state-of-the art industry practices over time for the targets to be realistic yet ambitious, as this will also help maintain the pressure on the EU battery recycling industry (article 57).

• The methodology for measuring recycling efficiency and determining recovery rates per metal needs to be consistent and standardised, so that the resulting numbers are understandable and facilitate accurate comparison (article 57(4)).

We therefore recommend to:

• Maintain mandatory technical documentation but adjust timing to allow industry to adapt to new requirements (give at least 24 months between the adoption of the implementing act and the disclosure obligation).

• Make declarations based on EU-wide company weighted averages: current proposal implies an unnecessary level of granularity and administrative burden for the declaration requirements (“each battery model and batch per manufacturing plant”). Proposal: companies would have to provide information on the percentage of cobalt, lead, lithium or nickel recovered from waste present in the batteries placed on the EU market as an aggregated figure.

• As long as insufficient data and visibility on the availability of recycled materials within the EU is available, minimum shares of recycled content should be substituted by an obligation to maximise recycled content in new batteries. Setting ex-ante minimum levels of recycled content in manufacturing at this point in time could result in unanticipated market distortions, such as: (i) a need to import secondary materials from third countries due to insufficient availability in the EU; (ii) a decrease of material availability in other applications; (iii) a perverse incentive to limit battery lifetime in order to get the recycled materials needed to meet the minimum levels.

• The obligation to maximise recycled content should be followed by an in-depth Commission assessment of the environmental and market costs and benefits of minimum levels of recycled content to determine if further legislative action is needed and which levels of recycled content requirements would be feasible. If appropriate, the regulation should be amended as necessary.

We therefore recommend to:

• Limit access to Battery Management System (BMS) data to authorised operators (proposed definition (article 2(20)): any legal or natural person who has legally purchased the battery and who fulfils the conditions detailed in article 59(5)b) and to relevant data). Safeguards should be placed to limit significant liability and safety issues when a battery is manipulated outside the OEM’s control.

• Access to BMS data should be limited to those batteries with second life potential (article 14) and made subject to a signed contract proving that remanufacturing or reuse will take place (article 59). The current open-ended wording on access level and the definition of “independent operator” seem too broad for the purpose and sensitivity of the information to be shared (articles 14 & 59).

• Conditions and levels of access to battery-related information should also be clarified in the case of the battery passport and the electronic exchange system before these detailed disclosure obligations enter into force (articles 65, 64 respectively).

• More legal clarity should be provided in the Battery regulation and/or as part of a revised EU Waste Shipment Regulation on the status of batteries sent for remanufacturing or reuse. Batteries undergoing remanufacturing operations should not be classified as battery waste at any point in time, including transport, as the objective of remanufacturing is to extend the original life of the battery. This could be done by clarifying under article 58 that batteries that are shipped across EU borders for remanufacturing or re-use operations should not be subject to the burdensome requirements of the EU Waste shipment regulation (WSR). Such operations should be managed outside the scope of the WSR, which is highly costly and creates significant impediments to waste movements for efficient repair, reuse or recycling.

We therefore recommend to:

• Adapt the proposed timeline to give more time to comply with new, extensively detailed provisions, including new third party verification requirements (24 months instead of 12) and include all battery applications in the scope of article 39 obligations.

• Include the explicit possibility to recognise industry-led schemes as a means to implement all requirements laid down in article 39; and align article 72 on scheme recognition with these changes by specifying the criteria, conditions and timeline for industry-led supply chain due diligence schemes to be recognised

• Other required changes must come from other legislations, e.g the Commission’s upcoming proposal for mandatory cross sectoral due diligence requirements. These should guarantee a level playing field between batteries and competing technologies, notably fossil fuels.

We therefore recommend to:

• Closely consider additional regulatory and practical burden of setting ex ante performance requirements for future EV and industrial batteries

• Limit scope for the Commission to make use of delegated acts to change the regulatory framework in regards to standardisation at a later stage. This task should be left to standardisation organisations.

• Limit the scope for Member states to challenge the compliance of batteries on their market to avoid market fragmentation across Europe (articles 66-68).

• Enforcement provisions under Chapter VI on economic operators’ obligations and article 17 should limit the grounds for re-examining or updating conformity assessment of batteries.

• Importers under article 41 should not be in charge of carrying out sample testing of marketed batteries, investigate nor keep register of complaints of non-conforming batteries and battery recalls. This responsibility should be attributed to notified bodies or market surveillance authorities instead.

We therefore recommend to:

• Adapt the proposed timeline to reflect the need to significantly update and improve current Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR), which currently do not exist for Battery Energy Storage Systems.