Carbon Accounting Management Platform Benchmark…
Regulation, environmental impacts and key market players
This study provides highlights on battery recycling industry trends, in the context of a fast-changing regulatory environment. Sia Partners draws on its sectoral expertise to provide a global overview of the battery recycling market and its mid-term perspective.
Batteries are regarded as one of the fundamental tools to build a carbon neutral trajectory for direct and energy emissions, contributing to the objective of carbon neutrality across all up and downstream activities.
Given the increasing pressure on critical materials (lithium, cobalt, nickel) associated with the surge in battery production, lawmakers are imposing a stringent regulatory framework and higher recovery rates. This trend is also reflected by numerous standards shaped by the battery manufacturing industry itself.
In this context, the recycling industry promises to be a booming market: it is expected to grow by an average of 8% per year until 2030. Most of the growth potential is concentrated in the Asia-Pacific region, where China already accounts for 70% of the region's recycling capacity.
Three main player categories in this promising market have been identified so far: recycling pure players, EV manufacturers and energy & raw materials suppliers.
Yet, these actors will have to cope with an unequal level of recyclability depending on the battery components and the selected recycling technology.
With regard to this observation, Sia Partners offers a comparative assessment of the value added for two common types of Li-ion batteries. At this stage, recycling is generally deemed profitable, although its profitability strongly varies with the battery chemical composition and the raw material stock price.