DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Main The Cost – Turning danger into reward with a round financial system for EV batteries and significant minerals, a whitepaper launched by the Ellen MacArthur Basis throughout the World Financial Discussion board Annual Assembly 2026, marks the primary built-in, actionable round value-chain roadmap for EV batteries grounded in real-world industrial follow. It additionally units a landmark milestone within the cooperation between CATL and the Basis.
Developed with enter from over 30 main organizations throughout the EV battery ecosystem — together with CATL, DHL, Volvo, and JLR, alongside analysis establishments and NGOs — the report units out a transparent, industry-informed path for the way EV batteries have to be designed, used, recovered, and reintegrated to maximise worth and scale back systemic danger throughout the worth chain.
Because the founding strategic accomplice of The Basis’s Essential Minerals Mission, CATL labored intently with The Basis and {industry} friends to translate round financial system rules into sensible, deployable actions grounded in actual working expertise. The roadmap additionally helps CATL’s World Power Circularity Dedication, together with its long-term objective to decouple battery progress from virgin uncooked materials extraction.
It highlights the alternatives a round EV battery system can unlock throughout setting, financial system, product, and broader worth creation. By conserving batteries and their vital minerals in use throughout a number of lifecycles, it reduces demand for newly mined supplies, lowers emissions, and helps renewable power integration. It additionally will increase financial worth by bettering materials effectivity, decreasing waste and operational prices, and creating new income streams. On the identical time, it strengthens provide chain resilience and distributes financial advantages extra equitably throughout areas, displaying {that a} systemic, round strategy transforms potential dangers into strategic, value-generating alternatives.
5 brilliant spots to unlock a round EV battery system
The whitepaper identifies 5 interdependent actions wanted to maintain battery supplies in high-value use and strengthen system resilience:
- Design batteries for circularity, not disposal
- Rethink battery service inside optimized power–mobility programs
- Scale round enterprise fashions that deal with batteries as long-term belongings
- Construct and co-invest in regional round infrastructure
- Allow a round working system via information, requirements, and coverage
CATL actions already in follow
CATL is already placing these system-level actions into follow throughout its operations. By separating the battery from the automobile, CATL manages batteries as centrally managed belongings, growing utilization, enabling scheduled upkeep, and guaranteeing predictable return at finish of use. Immediately, CATL operates greater than 1,000 passenger-vehicle and over 300 commercial-vehicle swap stations, supported by a rising ecosystem of greater than 100 companions.
This method integration permits high-quality restoration at scale. CATL’s recycling operations obtain restoration charges of 99.6% for nickel, cobalt, and manganese, and 96.5% for lithium, with processing capability increasing towards 270,000 tonnes per yr. In parallel, CATL is making use of various chemistries akin to sodium-ion batteries, utilizing extensively out there supplies and decreasing lifecycle carbon emissions per kilowatt-hour by as much as 60%, reinforcing round efficiency throughout mobility, swapping, and power storage purposes.
Scaling collectively
Talking at The Basis’s Management Briefing amongst CATL Jiang Li, Vice-Chairman and Board Secretary of CATL highlighted: “This report marks a significant milestone within the international journey in the direction of a round battery financial system. Round battery programs should now be scaled throughout areas, industries, and purposes — from EVs to power storage — and tailored to various market contexts.”
“As EV adoption accelerates, a round financial system for batteries and significant minerals is now not elective — it’s important to affordability, resilience, and long-term progress whereas decreasing environmental and social impacts,” mentioned Wen-Yu Weng, Govt Chief for Essential Minerals on the Ellen MacArthur Basis. “EV batteries are strategic belongings, and round approaches are key to retaining their worth and guaranteeing vital minerals by no means develop into waste. We welcome CATL’s contribution and sit up for continued collaboration to assist scale a really round battery system and help the broader power transition.”
For CATL, this agenda instantly underpins its pathway to carbon neutrality — constructing on the achievement of carbon neutrality throughout all its battery vegetation, and its goal to attain carbon neutrality throughout the total worth chain by 2035.
The launch of the report marks an early milestone in CATL and The Basis’s broader collaboration to speed up circularity of vital minerals. The subsequent part will give attention to stress-testing these approaches in real-world environments, to know how design, use, life extension, assortment, and recycling loops perform collectively at scale.
