EBSI projects
TRACE4EU Battery Materials Traceability
Helping European battery manufacturers enhance the reliability of information critical to the usage of product passports.
The vision
Verifiable Supply Chain Information for the Battery Passport.
The Trace4EU consortium is developing traceability in the battery supply chain that is interoperable with Catena-X and UNECE while providing verifiable data about Product Carbon Footprint (PCF), third-party certifications, and material origin.
The challenge
Lack of a trusted supply chain data required for compliance.
The new EU battery regulation introduces stringent supply chain information and digital product passport requirements, significantly raising compliance costs. Economic operators, responsible for placing products on the market, face challenges in verifying supply chain data, heightening the risk of liability. Additionally, the regulation imposes substantial operational costs, necessitating dedicated personnel for supply chain due diligence, supplier communication, and information gathering, thereby increasing the overall burden on companies.
The opportunity
EBSI Technology has the potential to significantly enhance data trust in the supply chain and enable the creation of verifiable Digital Product Passports.
EBSI technology provides a significant advancement in ensuring data trust within supply chains, particularly for creating verifiable Digital Product Passports (DPPs). By enabling the exchange of verifiable data through secure connections, EBSI boosts confidence in data sources and critical KPIs, such as the Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) and social responsibility metrics in the context of battery manufacturing.
This is enabled by using Verifiable Credentials for all data exchanges and anchoring public key material with EBSI, which enables cross-border data verification.
The project
Enhancing Battery Supply Chain Transparency and Verifiable Battery Passports with EBSI.
This project aims to pilot the use of EBSI Verifiable Credentials to authenticate data exchanged within the battery supply chain, thereby enhancing the reliability of information critical to the Battery Passport. Targeting the development and implementation of a secure data sharing and verification system, it allows economic operators to efficiently communicate with suppliers and exchange trusted data.
These efforts facilitate the creation of a Battery Passport that includes verifiable data on product carbon footprint, responsible mining certifications, and supply chain due diligence reports among others. In addition, the system allows other stakeholders to participate in data issuance and verification such as certification bodies, audit companies, regulators, and end customers.
The scenario
Discover the scenarios.
Data exchange along the supply chain.
Onboarding and request of verifiable Legal identity and Catena-x membership credential
Janet is the Compliance Officer at battery manufacturer ElectroVolt. ElectroVolt is required by EU battery regulation to create a Battery Passport for each of their batteries that can be accessed through a data carrier. Besides performance, durability, safety data, and instructions, the Battery Passport must contain supply chain information. Most importantly, the Battery Passport must indicate the Product's Carbon Footprint and a supply chain due diligence report.
- To get started, Janet contacts an Onboarding Service Provider (OSP) and 1 requests to get validated and receive a Catena-X membership credential. The OSP authenticates her request and 2 issues a Catena-X membership to Janet to be later used for authentication purposes.
- Janet then 3 requests to be issued a Legal Entity Identifier by Bundesanzeiger Verlag, which is 4 issued to her upon registration as a legal entity.
- Both credentials are 5 stored in ElectroVolt's managed identity wallet.
Exchange and verification of the PCF Credential
Next, Janet requests data from her suppliers. She needs to gather the PCF (Product Carbon Footprint) of all the battery inputs, as well as the necessary documentation for the supply chain due diligence report, including a responsible mining certification (RMC).
- Using the BP management interface, Janet creates a secure data connection with her direct supplier (Tier-1). For authentication, she 6 presents her verifiable Legal Entity Identifier and Catena-X membership credential to the supplier.
- Once the supplier 7 verifies ElectroVolt's legal entity identifier against the EBSI ledger and the data access rights against the supplier's Data access policies, they collaborate with audit firm August&Sons to 8 issue her the PCF verifiable credential in the approved data schema
Exchange and verification of the responsible mining certification
- ElectroVolt 9 requests from their supplier to see proof that their supply chain conforms to responsible supply chain practices.
- Since the Tier-1 supplier wants to keep their supply chain confidential, they agree to request a responsible mining certification (RMC) from their Lithium supplier. Following the same connection and authentication process, BIMA, a legally recognised certification body, 10 issues the mine the RMC. The responsible mining certificate (RMC) is 11 stored on the company wallet.
- The mine then presents it to the Tier-1 supplier, which they 12 present to ElectroVolt.
- Janet verifies 13 against the EBSI ledger the RMC and recognises who it was issued by. This ensures that the supply chain is authenticated according to recognised responsibility standards without compromising supply-chain confidentiality.
Creating the Digital Battery Passport
Now that Janet has confidence in the supply chain information underlying a potential Digital Product Passport, she uses the BP management system to generate a Battery Passport.
- ElectroVolt generates and 14 issues a Battery Passport (BP) verifiable credential that references a supply chain due diligence report 15 issued by RCS Global, the PCF, and the access point to view confidential data (contained in other VCs). The credential subject of the BP Credential is the serial identification number of the battery.
- A consumer or supply chain actor can scan the serial number of the product and view and 16 verify the information found in the BP.
The project plan
Current implementation stage and plan.
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