China-based battery maker CATL and the international charity Ellen MacArthur Foundation have re-affirmed an ambition for a circular economy at a panel at the London Climate Action Week conference.
The two organisations have held a strategic partnership since March this year to see how the principles of the circular economy can be applied to the whole battery value chain.
CATL said it has a goal within 20 years to not use primary raw materials for half of its new battery production.
It has four principles which it said it has adapted from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s framework on the circular economy. These are:
- Rethink systems which it said it has through its carbon chain management system
- Redesign products for longevity, disassembly and second-life applications – it said its batteries now have an 18,000-cycle life
- Rethink business models to shared, service-based, or second-life models with a plan to deploy 10,000 battery swap stations
- And to recycle materials which last year it said 130,000 tons of end-of-life-batteries were recycled.
Jiang Li, the vice president and board secretary of CATL, said that there will be new opportunities through the circular economy, with the global battery recycling market expected to exceed $165 billion (RMB 1.2 trillion) with more than 10 million jobs.
“The circular battery system won’t be built in a lab or a boardroom — it will be shaped through collaboration, testing, and shared effort,” said Jiang Li. “This ambition is a signal to help drive that work forward. Achieving it will require global collaboration, cross-sector learning, and open engagement across the value chain — all of which the Ellen MacArthur Foundation has long championed.”
Image: Jiang Li, vice president and board secretary, CATL, speaking about the circular economy at London Climate Action Week. Image: CATL.
