In Europe’s push toward a circular economy, batteries are both a cornerstone and a conundrum. They power everything from phones and scooters to electric cars and industrial equipment—but when they die, they become environmental puzzles. What exactly happens to them? How much gets recycled? And where does the lithium, cobalt, and nickel actually go?
The European Commission is now trying to answer those questions with more than just ambition. A new draft regulation, currently out for public consultation, proposes a sweeping overhaul of how EU countries track and report waste batteries. It’s not exactly headline-grabbing material but it could quietly reshape how Europe manages one of its most important clean-tech resources.
At the heart of the proposal is a simple idea: if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
A uniform system for a fragmented problem
Today, Member States collect battery data in different ways, at different levels of detail, and with uneven oversight. That’s a problem not just for the Commission, which has to monitor whether recycling targets are being met, but for businesses and consumers who are increasingly asking for accountability.
Under the new rules, every country would follow the same blueprint: a detailed reporting format covering five key battery categories portable, industrial, EV, light means of transport (think scooters and e-bikes), and automotive starter batteries. For each, governments will need to report how many were sold, how many were collected as waste, how they were treated, and crucially what materials were recovered.
But it doesn’t stop at numbers. Alongside the data, each country will have to file a quality check report explaining exactly how the information was gathered and verified. Think of it as a due diligence dossier for dead batteries.
From spreadsheet to strategy
Why the sudden focus on reporting formats? It’s not just about bureaucratic tidiness. The EU is betting big on batteries financially, industrially, geopolitically. Billions of euros are flowing into gigafactories, while the bloc scrambles to secure supply chains for critical raw materials. But recycling remains one of the weakest links.
“Battery recycling is where climate policy meets resource strategy,” said one EU official who worked on the draft. “And right now, the data we have is just not good enough.”
That gap has consequences. Without clear figures, the Commission can’t tell which countries are on track to meet recycling efficiency goals or whether those targets are still realistic in light of new battery chemistries hitting the market.
The draft regulation aims to change that. It lays out specific formats for reporting not only how much waste is collected, but also how much material is recovered from cobalt and lithium to plastics and steel. The goal is to move beyond tonnes of waste and start tracking tonnes of value.
No more guesswork
The proposed rules also take aim at loopholes and inconsistencies. For instance, countries will need to prove that batteries exported outside the EU for treatment were actually recycled under equivalent environmental standards. And they’ll need to account for stockpiled batteries collected in previous years, to avoid inflated collection figures.
To help catch data outliers, the regulation introduces a checklist of red flags collection rates over 90%, recycling rates over 99%, or large jumps from one year to the next. When that happens, governments will be expected to explain what went wrong or what changed.
All data must be submitted electronically, using a new EU-wide standard. That could eventually enable continent-wide dashboards or automated compliance checks a quiet but powerful step toward digital environmental governance.
A technocratic move with real-world impacts
It’s easy to dismiss this regulation as just another layer of red tape. But for recyclers, battery makers, and policymakers alike, it could unlock real benefits.
“Good data is like infrastructure it’s invisible when it works, but everything depends on it,” said a sustainability director at a major EV manufacturer. “If we want to build a circular battery economy, we need to know what’s coming back, what’s being lost, and what’s being reused.”
The Commission is accepting feedback on the draft until September 9, after which it’s expected to finalise the rules for rollout in 2026. For those looking to explore the details you can download the full draft regulation and annexes directly below.
