Holistic material-manufacturing environmental assessment of Li-Ion batteries

Li-Ion batteries account for 98% of the global battery electric vehicle market, yet most life cycle assessments evaluate environmental impact using carbon dioxide equivalent (kgCO₂e) emissions alone. The novelty of this study lies in addressing how five battery chemistries, Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP), Nickel Cobalt Aluminium oxide (NCA), and Nickel Manganese Cobalt oxide (NMC) variants (532, 622, and 811), compare when assessed beyond kgCO₂e across 16 weighted environmental indicators. A rigorous cradle-to-gate analysis is conducted for a 60 kWh battery cell functional unit, modelling via the ISO compliant EcoChain platform, using the policy-aligned Environmental Footprint 3.1 method, converted into EcoPoint score (Pt) for cross-category comparison. The significance of this holistic assessment detailed that, on average across chemistries, ∼85% of the impact was associated with: resource minerals/metals (48%), climate change (10%), water (8%), fossil resource (7%), acidification (6%), and particulate matter (6%). The EcoPoint evaluation demonstrated the high-impact shares of cobalt (20–50%), copper (25–66%), nickel (12–23%), and aluminium (9–16%) across the chemistries. Batteries in increasing order of Pt per 60 kWh (and kgCO₂e) were: LFP 0.425 (1196), NMC 811 0.47 (1365), NCA 0.525 (1479), NMC 622 0.583 (1613), and NMC 532 0.75 (1952). A novel Sustainable Performance Index (SPI) normalises manufacturing burden against energy density and cost, revealing NMC 811 leads on energy density efficiency (SPI ED = 585 Wh/kg.Pt) whilst LFP, NCA, and NMC 811 remain closely grouped on cost efficiency (SPI $ = 193, 186, and 195 $/kWh.Pt). This manufacturing-stage trade-off framework provides a rigorous and replicable basis for holistic battery sustainability assessment.