4. Measuring environmental footprints and sustainable resource use

For many years now, the scientific community has been called upon to contribute to battery innovation. There's even a race for performance in storage capacity at minimum cost. Unfortunately, this race for performance has overshadowed the question of the availability and sustainability of the resources used for the devices. The European Commission has set extremely ambitious targets for carbon neutrality by 2050, with an important milestone in 2030. This will lead to an increase in mining and recycling, which have a certain footprint on the environment. What's more, if the solutions found by scientists are to be rapidly applied in the real economy, the raw materials supply chain needs to be stable. This is crucial for companies, especially SMEs, which could be dramatically affected by shortages, sanctions or rapid fluctuations in raw material prices. On the other hand, in order to guarantee...