What Article 7 Demands
Article 7 of EU Battery Regulation 2023/1542 carbon footprint requirements requires manufacturers to produce a carbon footprint declaration for every battery placed on the EU market that falls within the regulation’s scope. This applies to industrial batteries with a capacity above 2 kWh, electric vehicle batteries, and light means of transport batteries. The declaration is not optional and is not a voluntary disclosure. It is a legal requirement tied to market access. The full text is published on EUR-Lex as Regulation (EU) 2023/1542.
The declaration must be included in the battery’s digital passport. The battery passport itself is defined under Article 77 as a digital record accessible via a QR code or similar data carrier attached to the battery. Carbon footprint data is one of the mandatory data sets that passport must contain.
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Score Your ReadinessWhat the Declaration Must Cover
Article 7(1) specifies that the carbon footprint declaration must cover the full lifecycle of the battery. That means five distinct phases must all be accounted for:
- Raw material extraction and processing: mining, refining, and preparation of materials such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese.
- Manufacturing: cell production, module and pack assembly, and all associated energy consumption at the production facility.
- Transport: logistics between each stage of the supply chain, from raw material sourcing through to delivery to the end customer.
- Use phase: emissions associated with charging and operating the battery over its service life.
- End-of-life: collection, sorting, dismantling, recycling, and disposal processes.
Leaving out any of these phases means the declaration does not comply with Article 7. A declaration that covers only manufacturing emissions, for example, does not meet the requirement.
The Unit of Measurement
Article 7 sets a specific unit: kilograms of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt-hour of total energy throughput (kg CO2e / kWh). This unit normalises the carbon footprint figure against the battery’s total energy output over its lifetime, allowing comparison across batteries of different sizes and chemistries.
Manufacturers cannot choose an alternative unit or express the figure as a total absolute emission number. The regulation requires this specific functional unit. If your internal carbon accounting uses a different metric, you must convert your data to kg CO2e / kWh before submitting the declaration.
The Methodology Is Not Your Choice
This is the point most manufacturers misunderstand. Article 7(1) states that the carbon footprint must be calculated using the methodology established by a delegated act adopted by the European Commission. You cannot use ISO 14067, the GHG Protocol, or any other standard you prefer unless that standard is specifically adopted or referenced in the delegated act.
The delegated act has not yet been finalised as of the time of writing. The Commission is expected to adopt it, but the exact date is pending and has not been confirmed in the regulation itself. Until the delegated act is published in the Official Journal of the EU, manufacturers should monitor the Commission’s work programme and prepare their data collection systems so they can apply the correct methodology once it is confirmed.
Once the delegated act is in force, following a different methodology, even a widely recognised one, will not satisfy Article 7. The requirement is to follow the Commission’s specified methodology, not a self-selected equivalent.
Two Separate Deadlines: Declaration vs. Threshold
Article 7 creates two distinct obligations with two separate timelines.
The first obligation is to draw up the carbon footprint declaration. The dates for it are conditional, and that condition is the most misunderstood part of Article 7. Each date runs from the calendar date stated in the Regulation or from the entry into force of the relevant delegated and implementing acts, whichever is the latest. The calendar dates are 18 February 2025 for electric vehicle batteries, 18 February 2026 for rechargeable industrial batteries other than those with external storage, 18 August 2028 for LMT batteries, and 18 August 2030 for rechargeable industrial batteries with external storage.
Those calendar dates are floors, not effective dates. Article 7(1) required the Commission to adopt the methodology delegated act by 18 February 2024 for electric vehicle batteries. At the time of writing that act has not been adopted: the Commission published a draft delegated regulation on carbon footprint methodology for electric vehicle batteries for feedback in April 2024, and it has not appeared in the Official Journal. Because the declaration applies 12 months after that act enters into force, or on the calendar date, whichever is later, the twelve month clock has not started. The practical position is that the carbon footprint declaration obligation has not yet commenced, and it will not commence until the methodology is adopted and published.
Treat any source that tells you the declaration became mandatory in February 2025 with caution, and check the Official Journal yourself. The obligation is real and it is coming, but the trigger written into Article 7(1) has not yet been pulled.
The battery passport is a separate obligation with its own date. Article 77(1) requires an electronic record for each LMT battery, each industrial battery above 2 kWh and each electric vehicle battery placed on the market from 18 February 2027. Until the carbon footprint declaration is accessible through the QR code referred to in Article 13(6), Article 7(1) requires it to accompany the battery.
The second obligation is stricter. From a later date, set by a separate delegated act under Article 7(3), batteries must not exceed a maximum lifecycle carbon footprint threshold. This threshold has not yet been set. The Commission will determine the threshold value and the date from which it applies through that delegated act, adopted in accordance with Article 89. This date is expected around 2028 or later, pending the delegated act adoption, but it is not confirmed in the regulation text and should not be treated as a fixed deadline until the act is published.
These are two different legal requirements. Meeting the first (declaration in the passport) does not automatically mean you will meet the second (staying below the threshold). Manufacturers who begin collecting lifecycle data now will be better positioned to assess whether their batteries are likely to comply with the threshold once it is set.
What Happens When Lifecycle Data Is Not Available
Supply chain data gaps are a practical reality, particularly for raw material extraction stages. Article 7 and its associated methodology framework acknowledge this. Where lifecycle data for specific battery components or supply chain stages is not available, manufacturers may use industry average data as a substitute.
However, this is not a free pass. Two conditions apply:
- The use of industry average data must be documented. You must record which data points were replaced with averages and why primary data was not available.
- The data source must be identified. You cannot simply state that averages were used. You must name the database, study, or dataset from which the averages were drawn.
This documentation requirement exists because the carbon footprint declaration is a legal statement. If the declaration is challenged by a market surveillance authority, a customer, or a notified body, you must be able to show exactly how each figure was derived. Undocumented use of averages will not satisfy that requirement.
As your supply chain relationships mature and primary data becomes available from suppliers, you should replace industry averages with actual figures and update the declaration accordingly. The battery passport is a living record, not a one-time submission.
Performance Classes and What They Mean for Your Declaration
Article 7(2) also introduces the concept of carbon footprint performance classes. Once the delegated act establishes the methodology and threshold, batteries will be assigned to a performance class based on where their lifecycle carbon footprint falls relative to the threshold and to other batteries on the market.
The performance class must be displayed on the battery label and in the battery passport. This means the carbon footprint declaration feeds directly into a public-facing classification that customers, fleet operators, and procurement teams will be able to see and compare. A battery with a high kg CO2e / kWh figure will be placed in a lower performance class, which may affect purchasing decisions before the mandatory threshold even comes into force.
The specific class boundaries and labelling format will be set by the delegated act. Until that act is adopted, the exact classification system is not confirmed.
Who Bears the Obligation
Article 7 places the obligation on the manufacturer. Under Article 3(33) of the regulation, the manufacturer is the natural or legal person who manufactures a battery, or has a battery designed or manufactured, and markets that battery under its own name or trademark or puts it into service for its own purposes. If you are an EU-based company that sources batteries from a non-EU manufacturer and places them on the EU market under your brand, you are the manufacturer for the purposes of this regulation and you carry the Article 7 obligation.
Importers and authorised representatives have separate obligations under Articles 40 and 41, but the carbon footprint declaration itself is the manufacturer’s responsibility. You cannot transfer that obligation to your supplier by contract alone. If your supplier produces the battery and you brand it, you must ensure the declaration is accurate, complete, and calculated using the correct methodology.
How to Prepare Now
The delegated act on methodology has not been adopted yet, which means you cannot finalise your calculation method. But there is preparation work you can do now that will reduce the effort required once the act is published.
- Map your supply chain for all five lifecycle phases. Identify which suppliers can provide primary activity data and which cannot.
- For suppliers who cannot provide primary data, identify which industry average databases cover their processes. The Commission’s Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) database and the ecoinvent database are commonly used, but confirm which sources the delegated act will accept once it is published.
- Set up a data collection process that captures energy consumption, transport distances, and material quantities at each stage. This data will be needed regardless of which specific methodology the delegated act adopts.
- Build documentation practices now. Record data sources, calculation assumptions, and any use of averages in a format that can be audited.
- Monitor the European Commission’s delegated act pipeline. The act under Article 7(1) is the trigger for your calculation obligations. Subscribe to the Official Journal or use a regulatory monitoring service to catch the publication date.
Penalties for Non-Compliance
Article 93 requires EU member states to establish penalties for infringements of the regulation. The regulation does not set a single EU-wide penalty figure. Each member state sets its own. However, Article 93 requires penalties to be effective, proportionate, and dissuasive, and requires member states to notify the Commission of those rules without delay. Article 93 set 18 August 2025 as the date by which member states had to lay those rules down. Placing a battery on the EU market without a compliant carbon footprint declaration in its passport will constitute an infringement once the mandatory date applies. Article 79 sets the national procedure for batteries presenting a risk, under which market surveillance authorities evaluate a battery and can require withdrawal or recall of a non-compliant product. Article 83 covers formal non-compliance such as a missing or wrongly affixed CE marking.
Related Reading
- EU Battery Regulation 2023/1542, the full obligation set including the Article 77 passport requirement
- Battery passport mandatory fields, what Annex XIII actually requires
- The EU DPP Registry operator reference, how registration works in practice and why battery registration cannot yet succeed
- Every EU DPP compliance deadline, with the conditional ones flagged
If you want to see how Traceable structures carbon footprint data collection and battery passport generation for Article 7 compliance, visit traceable.digital/pricing to start a free trial. The platform is built around the data fields and documentation requirements the regulation specifies.
