The lead industry has spent three decades building one of the most effective voluntary worker-safety programmes in manufacturing. That lead safety success story wasn’t driven by regulation, it was built through a voluntary framework of shared knowledge, peer benchmarking, and continuous improvement that Battery Council International (BCI) has championed since 1997.
The Lead Training Academy and Battery Council International are bringing together leading experts to help better understand the world of lead by sharing that knowledge globally alongside other leading industry experts and topics at the inaugural Lead Academy.
BEST speaks with Roger Miksad, President and Executive Director of Battery Council International, and Mark Stevenson, Director and Technical Chair of the Lead Training Academy, ahead of the inaugural Learning Lead Course at the 10th International Secondary Lead Conference in Colombo this October.
Through the Learning Lead Course attached to the 10th ISLC in Colombo, that accumulated expertise from that work, along with leading experts from around the globe, will be shared with a wider audience. BEST sat down with Roger Miksad and Mark Stevenson to understand what the programme is, what it is not, and why the secondary lead sector may be at an inflection point.
Lead safety – the evidence base
BEST: The case for this programme rests on a claim that voluntary, knowledge-led approaches produce better outcomes than regulation alone. What’s the evidence that this method will work?
Roger Miksad: Real employees at real facilities are the evidence. Since 1997, BCI member companies have tracked worker blood lead levels against internal targets significantly below U.S. federal requirements. The industry average is now below eight micrograms per deciliter. OSHA’s allowed limit is 50. We didn’t get there by waiting for a lower requirement – we got there because companies were determined to do better and shared what worked. That’s not an argument against regulation; it’s an argument that regulation sets a floor, and culture determines how far above it you operate.
Mark Stevenson: You cannot construct a building without foundations, which this course is all about. The example is the North American outcome, which wasn’t a single intervention either. It took decades of EHS conferences, shared data, and peer pressure. This course is not trying to transplant a set of rules, but rather to give the participants knowledge to understand the basis of the guidelines and rules needed to improve. It’s this “knowledge infrastructure” that enables continuous improvement. You cannot improve on what you don’t understand.
What the course delivers
Mark Stevenson: A better and more informed understanding of the metal, the industry and the people and experts in the industry that can help in their everyday work. We’ve built the course to cover as much of the lead story as possible in the time available, but relationships built at Colombo will only strengthen everyone’s knowledge. Modules cover the lifecycle and historical uses of lead, including secondary smelting and refining, environmental controls, compliance frameworks, quality specifications, and global supply-demand dynamics. Health and safety is woven through all of it – not a standalone module at the end.
Delegates will leave with a certificate of completion from the Lead Training Academy and, more importantly, a better understanding of the metal and why practices exist, not just what they are. That distinction matters enormously in markets where compliance is treated as a bureaucratic obligation rather than an engineering discipline.
BEST: Who is the intended audience?
Mark Stevenson: It is designed for anybody who wants to better understand Element 82!
The course has been designed to be broader than just for plant EHS managers filling their knowledge gap about the metal. Experienced industry professionals, as well as people new to the sector, including government officials, NGO representatives, and health workers, are encouraged to attend. We are also strongly encouraging the young members of the industry and beyond with our Emerging Leaders programme.
Roger Miksad: BCI’s EHS Conference that has taken place for more than 35 years in North America has always been as much about practitioners learning from each other as from the formal programme. We are supporting this effort to build a similar dynamic in a new geography. We are strong believers in this sort of shared spirit, and we want the Learning Lead Course to be the place where attendees can start to build that community for themselves.
And looking forward to the next BCI EHS Conference in 2027, we’re hopeful that we will capture experiences and questions that can come back to North America and inform what’s next. The battery industry is a community built on shared values, and it’s important that we have as many global stakeholders involved in the conversation as we can.
The curriculum and topics covered are outlined here.
The informal sector problem
BEST: A share of recycling in developing markets happens outside the formal sector entirely. How do you respond to that?
Mark Stevenson: In my 47 years in the secondary lead industry, I’ve seen informal operations in many countries around the globe, including Australia. Thankfully, the vast majority of these are long gone (including Australia), but the practice, which I term “rogue” smelting, still exists. Numerous factors are driving this practice – the major one, of course, is the intrinsic value of the spent battery. Historic practices, ease of collection, tax avoidance, profitability, simplicity, etc, all play their part in this rogue sector of the industry. Each country and region has different drivers for rogue smelting, but often there are no strong economic or regulatory incentives to consolidate material into permitted facilities.
Training doesn’t resolve those structural conditions. But the government officials and regulators we’re designing this programme for are exactly the people positioned to change them. When a health ministry official understands what a controlled smelter produces versus a backyard operation – in worker outcomes, emissions, community exposure, and jobs and profits – they can write better policy and make the case for investment in formal infrastructure. The informal rogue sector is a problem we’re working to eliminate, and I’m personally looking forward to that day. The formal sector is where we build the knowledge to help solve it.
Roger Miksad: Supply chain dynamics matter too. As global buyers apply more scrutiny to how end-of-life material is processed, the commercial incentive to formalise increases. Operators who can demonstrate competence against internationally recognised standards will have access to markets that informal operators will not. The Lead Training Academy is part of building that ecosystem.
The policy dimension
BEST: BCI is a founding partner of LeadBattery360°. How does this programme fit within that framework?
Roger Miksad: LeadBattery360° was established to promote responsible practices across the entire lead battery value chain globally, and we built it alongside ILA, EUROBAT, and ABR. One of its core principles is partnering with stakeholders and government agencies to share expertise and promote environmentally sound recycling in lower- and middle-income countries.
The Learning Lead Course is that principle made operational. It’s not peripheral – it sits at the center of what the international industry has committed to doing together.
BEST: Some argue that voluntary programmes are structurally insufficient and that mandatory certification with enforcement is the only lever that works at scale. How do you engage with that?
Mark Stevenson: Over the years, I have found that the overall understanding of this industry is often lacking when programmes are put in place. The problem is we underestimate the complexity of an industry that, from the outside, seems simple. This course aims to lay the foundations for a better understanding of its workings, and when policies & procedures are designed, they are based on knowledge. Standards and training are sequential, not competing. You can write any regulation you want, but if the people responsible for implementing it don’t understand what the standard requires, why, and how to practically comply, enforcement becomes difficult.
And I’ve seen it: a facility that passes an inspection because a box gets ticked, while the underlying practice is unchanged – because nobody understands the science behind the requirement. Durable improvement comes from practitioners who understand the engineering well enough to make good decisions when no inspector is present.
Roger Miksad: BCI’s program in North America has operated with regulatory requirements in the background and voluntary ambition in the foreground – and the voluntary ambition is what drove performance to where it is today.
We support strong regulation – indeed regulation around the globe still lags behind leading regions like North America, sometimes woefully so. We also believe voluntary commitment to continuous improvement is what drives performance beyond compliance, and that’s the culture we want to cultivate internationally.
Colombo and what comes next
BEST: Mark, what’s significant about the 10th ISLC?
Mark Stevenson: The ISLC first convened in Macau in 2009 and has grown into the only global conference dedicated to the secondary lead sector. This 10th anniversary edition will bring together recyclers, smelters, OEMs, and policymakers to examine market dynamics, regulatory developments, and technological advancements. Attaching the Learning Lead Course is deliberate. The experts delivering the training come from the same community presenting at the conference, and delegates attending the technical sessions stay for the foundational curriculum. It creates a learning ecosystem rather than two separate events.
BEST: Why Colombo?
Mark Stevenson: Lead is a global product, and in a way, it’s hard to choose a location to address many of the issues that are central to everyone. But Asia is where battery recycling is growing fastest, and with our knowledge of the area through the Asian Battery Conference, I believe we have chosen the right location for the inaugural workshop.
BEST: What does success look like in five years?
Mark Stevenson: The ultimate success would be the closure of the informal sector, partly through the knowledge gained from the course. Having participants who walk out of Colombo and do something different the following week by improving their operations or environment would be a great win. What I care about is whether someone running a plant in India or advising a ministry in Kenya makes a better decision than they would have without the training.
Roger Miksad: For BCI, success means changed behavior at facilities we’ve never visited. The goal is a cadre of trained practitioners who become the instructors in the next iteration – the same way knowledge compounded through BCI’s domestic program.
Thirty years ago, the idea that the North American industry would drive blood lead levels to a fraction of regulatory requirements – purely through voluntary effort – would have seemed equally ambitious. But today, that’s reality. It will definitely take more than five years to achieve that level of success elsewhere in the world. But BCI members are proof that it is possible when industry comes together with shared purpose and a long-term commitment to safety.
More Info
About the Lead Training Academy: A professional organisation dedicated to supporting the global lead and battery industries through industry representation, consulting, conferences, and specialised training. Mark Stevenson, Director and Technical Chair: mark@gleadtechnologies.com
About Battery Council International: The leading North American trade association representing the energy storage industry and a global leader in lead safety practices. BCI’s Voluntary Blood Lead Programme has driven continuous year-over-year reductions in member worker blood lead levels since 1997. batterycouncil.org
Register & Attend: 10th International Secondary Lead Conference & Learning Lead Course 2026, October 25–28, Cinnamon Life at City of Dreams, Colombo, Sri Lanka. 10islc.cw3.events
