Driving sustainability through data: a systematic review of indicators shaping the European Union digital battery passport

The European Battery Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 establishes the Digital Battery Passport (DBP) as a mandatory instrument for transparency, traceability, and regulatory compliance for lithium-ion batteries (LiBs). While the DBP marks a significant regulatory milestone, its current emphasis on carbon footprint reporting raises questions about whether it fully reflects the broader spectrum of environmental, economic, and social sustainability drivers documented in the scientific literature. This study addresses that gap through a systematic review of 48 life cycle sustainability studies on LiBs published between 2015 and 2025, comprising 31 Life Cycle Assessment, 9 Life Cycle Costing, and 8 Social Life Cycle Assessment studies, complemented by 5 Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment studies underpinning the cross-dimensional analysis. Recurrent environmental hotspots, cost drivers, and social risks were synthesised and mapped against current DBP requirements. Across environmental evidence, cathode material production and energy-intensive manufacturing consistently emerge as the dominant hotspots, while use phase impacts are governed by grid carbon intensity. Economic evidence identifies material cost volatility, manufacturing capital intensity, and total cost of ownership as recurrent drivers, none of which are addressed by the current regulation. Social risks concentrate in upstream cobalt, graphite, and nickel supply chains and are inadequately captured by country-level compliance reporting. Based on this evidence, a framework of eighteen DBP-ready indicators is proposed, distinguishing those already required by regulation, those partially addressed, and those currently absent. The findings carry direct implications across three fronts. For policy, they indicate which life-cycle indicators could strengthen future phases of the passport. For the industry, they clarify which sustainability data are most decision-relevant and where disclosure is most challenging. For research, they point to the need to consolidate economic and social life-cycle methods, so they match the maturity of environmental assessment.