Saving endangered species sometimes means knowing where they used to live — before scientists started studying them. For that, we need historical ecologists.

One of the most fascinating challenges of endangered species management is the concept of shifting baselines — the idea that how much worse a problem has gotten, and what your recovery goal should be, depends on when you start measuring the problem.

In many cases we need scientific data on the population and distribution of endangered species from before anyone started collecting scientific data.

So what do we do?

Solving this challenge has required the creation of an entirely new field called historical ecology, which looks at human interactions with the environment over long periods of time using historical research methods.

“Historical ecology sits at the intersection of a number of disciplines, including archaeology, history, anthropology and paleoecology,” says Ruth Thurstan of the University of Exeter, a leader in the field. “It is particularly useful for understanding the scale of changes that occurred before we started to scientifically monitor ecosystems.”

Take fish populations, for example. The impacts of fishing have occurred over hundreds of years, but we’ve only been monitoring some of these populations for decades. By using historical ecology, says Thurstan, “We find that deeper historical perspectives show a far greater magnitude of ecosystem change compared to the modern scientific evidence alone.”

Shark History

The same techniques can be helpful in trying to understand the historical range of a now-endangered species. Just knowing where a species lives now doesn’t tell you where it used to live — or will likely need to live again as its numbers recover.

One example of this challenge can be found in a new study that uses historical ecology methods to understand the historical range of the critically endangered angel shark.

Study co-authors Jan Geert Hiddink, a professor of marine biology at Bangor University, and Alec Moore, a postdoctoral researcher at Bangor University, found a copy of the 1686 natural history book “De Historia Piscium” filled with detailed handwritten notes made by Lewis Morris, a Welsh Customs officer who died in 1765. They also found several other documents from Morris’s career that contain detailed descriptions of angel sharks found along coastal Wales.

“We found several records of angel sharks in 275-year-old notes documenting shingle reefs in Wales,” says Hiddink. “The locations where these sharks were recorded coincide with the areas in Wales where they are still present now, showing that these reefs are core habitat for angel sharks.”

Without these tools we’d know only that the sharks use this habitat now. Knowing that they’ve used this habitat in centuries past, as well, makes it much more critical to protect the reefs — and we’d never have known without historical ecology approaches.

“Detecting changes in the distribution and abundance of rare species is difficult, especially for marine species, but it’s essential for identifying where management actions are required,” says Hiddink. “These unique observations highlight the value that historical material has for conservation.”

Looking Back

To uncover the information, Hiddink and Moore tapped skills not commonly used by ecologists. “There was a long process that involved reading a lot of work outside of modern scientific literature, as well as talking with people who had local expertise and sources, including historians and archivists,” says Moore.

We may have a lot more sophisticated tools for scientific inquiry today, but historical ecology shows that we shouldn’t discount the past, either.

“This paper shows that people have made thoughtful observations of marine species, and that these sources remain very relevant today,” says Loren McClenachan, the Canada Research Chair in Ocean History in Sustainability at the University of Victoria.

McClenachan wasn’t involved in the angel shark study but has used historical ecology in her own research for years, including a  2009 analysisof how the size of fish in the Florida Keys are shrinking and the species composition of communities is changing.

To determine that, she used a clever source of data: photographs taken by charter-fishing captains from 1956 to 2007, which show the daily catch from their fishing boats.

Thurstan called this paper one of her favorite examples of historical ecology work, because it “uses sources that most natural scientists wouldn’t traditionally consider scientific data, but captures peoples’ attention immediately,” she says.

Examples of using historical ecology to inform ocean conservation by other researchers include an analysis of old restaurant menus showing that commonly available fish had changed, an analysis of old fishing magazine articles that showed a massive decline in Australian snapper, and a look at coastal change in Brazil through historical newspaper articles.

Guiding Conservation

These research techniques are useful beyond the marine environment, too.

Similar methods have helped to identify the pre-exploitation range of wolvesin Europe and have been used to help demonstrate the impact of climate change on seasons.

For those willing to delve into historical datasets, there are countless interesting and relevant questions these tools can answer. But we also need to preserve the information, which includes a long-term investment in data management, researchers say.

Historical ecology can’t tell us everything we need to know to save a species, but it can jog our memory.

“Historical records can point us to locations that might be important for helping threatened species to recover, even if we’ve forgotten about them,” says Moore.

Because we’ve been changing ecosystems since long before scientists began recording those changes, “ecological observations alone can’t capture the full magnitude of change,” says McClenachan. But “history can tell us where to focus efforts for conservation and management, and to help set appropriate recovery targets.”

With the magnitude of the biodiversity crisis we face, that information is a welcome addition.

David Shiffman is a marine biologist specializing in the ecology and conservation of sharks. He received his Ph.D. in environmental science and policy from the University of Miami. Follow him on Twitter, where he’s always happy to answer any questions anyone has about sharks. This story originally appeared in The Revelator and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

This summer, we have seen a historic and deadly heat wave scorch western Europe, killing thousands, fueling wildfires, melting airport runways, and shuttering businesses. 

Earlier this year, a record-shattering heat wave in India reduced wheat yields, straining the balance between domestic needs and ambitions to increase exports to make up for shortfalls caused by Russia’s war against Ukraine. Ultimately, India, the second-largest producer of wheat globally, placed a temporary ban on wheat exports, compounding the global food crisis and Europe’s current crop devastation. 

In today’s interdependent world, there is no doubt that one of the greatest threats to our global and local economies is climate change. A 2022 Deloitte report found that climate inaction would cost the US economy $14.5 trillion by 2070. The same economy stands to gain $3 trillion over the next 50 years if it accelerates towards low-emissions growth. Furthermore, a World Bank report estimated that an additional 68 to 135 million people could be pushed into poverty by 2030 due to climate change, conflict, and the pandemic. 

With their vast influence and resources, corporations and financial institutions have the power to help solve these issues on a massive scale. However, this will require new, creative solutions, because the rules and referees who have got us here will not get us to where we need to go. With a $5 trillion price tag to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals, investors and philanthropists must adopt a more radically disruptive stance in their investment and philanthropy decisions.

This is where Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing (or sustainable investing) comes into play. Companies like IKEA, Chobani, Etsy, and Ecolab are already showing us what is possible when sustainability and purpose are prioritized. These priorities needn’t be at odds with profitability if we shift our mindset from short-term gains to long-term sustainability. Study after study shows that when companies create value for people and planet, they create higher value for themselves and shareholders.

From healthcare to renewable energy and water, the number of highly innovative, impactful businesses demonstrating this potential is growing annually, and generating attractive, long-term financial and social returns. From women-led startups to diverse businesses across emerging economies, these are enterprises with promising growth trajectories, and a unique ability to reach low-income consumers in emerging markets (where 85% of the world lives).

When creative solutions seem to be our best chance forward, why are we not hearing more about these investment opportunities among traditional finance circles? The answer: the financial industry continues to vet, reward, and undertake due diligence with the same lens that aligned with where the world was decades ago. Unsurprisingly, this is not in line with where we are today. 

For ESG investing to reach its full potential, we must move from passive divestments and screenings to proactive investments in impact investment funds and businesses that intentionally generate value for all. This intersection between ESG and impact investing is where there is the greatest opportunity to steer more capital towards people, organizations, and social innovations creating a prosperous future. This includes investing in diverse leadership teams and ethical supply chains; in new global standards around disclosures and reporting; and in financial risk analyses that factor in the cost of climate inaction. This is ESG 2.0.

Companies like Lebec Consulting, which are helping maximize impact for philanthropists, impact investors, and profitable business models and social enterprises, consistently see strong performance for portfolios that integrate key ESG factors. These businesses are demonstrating that purpose can generate long-term value and profitability. Many have unconventional structures, are led by social entrepreneurs in emerging markets (including women) and in the US, and leverage patient philanthropic and impact investment capital to expand their reach.

Acumen, a leader in this space with a 20-year track record, has reimagined venture financing and invested in innovative business models that create products and services for millions of underserved communities. Many of the early stage businesses Acumen invests in have gone on to scale and attract additional institutional investment, enabling millions of people to gain access to financial services in the US, and key renewable off-grid energy products in countries across Africa. Many of the businesses Acumen invests in are leading the clean energy transition. In total, Acumen has leveraged flexible philanthropic capital to invest over $150 million in 151 companies overlooked by traditional investors, reaching over 380 million people living in poverty and generating long-term social and financial returns.

Similarly, investors have failed to capitalize on global healthcare despite unending rhetoric from global leaders regarding the need to strengthen our interconnected health systems. The overwhelming majority of healthcare investments made in the last two years have been in the US and other advanced economies, with limited commitments to emerging markets where compelling business models are meeting tremendous demand. 

In Bangladesh, for instance, female-founded Praava Health achieved unit level profitability within its first year of operations with a business model that leverages technology, local and international healthcare value chains, government and private sector leadership, and a click-and-brick healthcare platform that has already delivered high quality healthcare to nearly 400,000 patients across Bangladesh. Despite these milestones, it has yet to attract institutional capital.

Betting on companies and investors like the ones mentioned here is not only a feel-good endeavor – it’s better for investors’ bottom lines in the long run, even if holding periods may be longer. Naysayers argue that high profitability will always win the day over purpose due to the design of our capitalist system. To that we say: let’s change the system and invest in opportunities that are adamant about creating impact and financial performance in places where traditional capital has failed to see opportunity. 

It’s time for new rules, new referees, and new players. Is your head in the game?

 
Lebec Consulting is a women-owned and women-led firm that advises corporations, foundations, high net-worth individuals, financial institutions, and entrepreneurs on how to achieve their greatest social impact through philanthropy; impact investing; and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing.

A new guide published in May is helping companies make smarter decisions about purchasing tropical forest credits, a strategy for offsetting greenhouse gas emissions, slowing deforestation and mitigating climate change.

The Tropical Forest Credit Integrity (TFCI) guide provides support for companies seeking to purchase high-quality carbon credits, which will bring them closer to decarbonizing their operations and ultimately to limiting global warming to 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit).

“Living ecosystems are critical carbon stocks and if we lose them, they cannot be recovered in the timeframe needed to tackle climate change,” said Angela Churie Kallhauge, head of impact at the Environmental Defense Fund, the organization that co-authored the report. “We know companies want to invest in tropical forest protection and have the resources to do it — but it can be hard for them to navigate the large, complex carbon credit marketplace.”

The other report authors include some of the world’s largest conservation organizations, including Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, the Wildlife Conservation Society, World Resources Institute, WWF, IPAM Amazônia, and Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA).

The project was funded by the Bezos Earth Fund, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos’s $10 billion initiative to support researchers, activists and NGOs in the fight against climate change.

Carbon credits allow companies, usually in industrialized countries, to offset their carbon emissions by paying for forest conservation, usually in less-industrialized countries. Generally, one credit is worth 1 metric ton in greenhouse gas emissions.

The voluntary carbon credit market has been growing rapidly in recent years, having reached $1 billion in value in 2021, with a future market value predicted to reach around $30 billion.

But the market has received criticism from some conservationists because it allows companies to continue to emit greenhouse gases, and has even been called a “license” to pollute. But the credits also buy time for companies trying to find other ways of transitioning away from excess carbon emissions in the long term.

As long as credits are being created, purchased and traded, there should be a strong set of recommendations available for companies seeking best practices, the new guide says.

“In the face of the urgency to conserve tropical forests and the rapidly increasing demand for tropical forest carbon emissions reductions and removals credits,” it says, “we agree that guidance for companies choosing to make such purchases is urgently needed.”

Major recommendations 

The guide urges companies to purchase tropical forest carbon credits not to replace other emissions reduction strategies, but rather to complement them. That means companies should be taking other ambitious steps to decarbonize their operations beyond purchasing carbon credits, the guide says.

The creation of carbon credits, it says, should also prioritize the rights of Indigenous and local communities — as well as of women and other underserved groups — especially when it comes to access to land, water and practices involving traditional knowledge. The best way to do this is to treat these groups as partners or shareholders, not just beneficiaries, the guide says.

Companies should take “a genuinely collaborative and intercultural approach that values diverse cultural practices and ensures full and effective participation on equal terms throughout the process … and with special emphasis on the equitable distribution of benefits,” the guide says.

Another way to make sure this happens is by creating a culture of transparency. Companies should publicly report their use of carbon credits and specify in which country the credit activity is taking place. They should also be clear about how and if the credits count toward a host country’s “nationally determined contributions,” a core component of the Paris Agreement that measures each country’s total contributions to emissions reductions.

“It’s essential that companies are transparent about their investments and credits, how they’re counting them and how they’re claiming them,” Lloyd Gamble, WWF’s senior director of forests and climate, told Mongabay.

It’s possible, for example, to purchase “removal credits” that are created through tree-planting efforts, which have been shown to be less effective carbon sinks than conserving old-growth forests. Instead, companies should make sure they’re purchasing high-quality credits that contribute to real-world reductions of deforestation in tropical forests, the guide says.

But perhaps the most important recommendation, Gamble said, involves the transition to what are known as “jurisdiction-scale programs,” in which credits are granted at state or province level — or even national level — and not project by project. If companies can rapidly transition to those kinds of purchases, the guide says, forest protections can be established on a scale of millions of hectares as opposed to thousands, allowing for carbon credits to contribute to conservation efforts at a much larger scale.

“It’s important that [companies’] accounting and planning is such that they’re supporting transformational activity, transformational change,” Gamble said, “not just little green islands of national parks or localized activities that may have short-term effects.”

This story originally appeared in Monga Bay and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

With less than 10 years left to avert climate catastrophe, campaigners Kumi Naidoo and Luisa Neubauer say activists need to ramp up civil disobedience.

Kumi Naidoo is the former head of Greenpeace. Luisa Neubauer is one of the founders of Germany’s Friday for Future climate school strike movement. But Naidoo and Neubauer’s entry into activism couldn’t have been more different.  

Now in his late 50s, Naidoo joined the anti-apartheid movement as a 15-year-old in Durban, which got him expelled, arrested and ultimately exiled from South Africa. Neubauer is from the wealthy German city of Hamburg. For young people like her from the “Merkel generation,” it was all about getting a good education and career, she says.  

Speaking in a Zoom call from Germany and South Africa, Neubauer and Naidoo acknowledge the contrast but also what unites them. Both experienced a lightbulb moment of realization that they would dedicate themselves to activism early in their lives. But they also said they’d recently come to realize they had to change their approach to activism due to the severity of the climate crisis.  

Quoting Albert Einstein, who famously said “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting to get different results,” Naidoo believes it would be “arrogant” for activism not to take that sentiment into account.  

An end to ‘handshake activism’

With deadly floods in South Africa, extreme heatwaves hitting India, Pakistan and now the US, the effects of fossil fuels heating the planet is here. Neubauer says the time for “handshake activism” is long over.  

It’s the kind of activism that looks good on paper, and it’s where the geography student says she started out.  

“It is something that you might be very dedicated to, but you’re also very keen to meet an important minister, to shake their hand and take a photo, and prove that you’ve actually done something,” she explains.  

Naidoo, who also headed human rights organization Amnesty International, nods in agreement at Neubauer’s description of “handshake activism,” adding that his generation of activists mistook access for influence.  

Being granted access, he says “allowed some government official or minister or CEO of a big company to tick off a box saying civil society consulted.”

Do climate activists need to be more radical?

Members of the global environment movement Extinction Rebellion have blocked roads and glued themselves to buildings and planes. And last year in Germany, young activists, calling themselves the “last generation,” took part in a hunger strike in front of the parliament building.  

Given what is at stake for humanity, some have suggested that such radicals acts are needed. Others argue that attacking fossil fuel infrastructure could be justified for the greater good.

Naidoo says he understands the “deep frustration, anger, and disappointment” but that “violence only serves those in power’s interests,” as it gives leaders an excuse to crack down on legitimate protest.  

“I got involved in a context of where there was a lot of struggles, a lot of death, a lot of sadness. But we came out of it with love, with the reconciliation, with a sense of justice, and that’s what I’ve tried to carry in all my activism,” Naidoo says, speaking of his anti-apartheid activism.  

Still, both Neubauer and Naidoo see peaceful, civil disobedience as “justified.”  

Oppression and repression: A shrinking space for climate activism?

Both activists say they have noticed a backlash against civil disobedience and even climate protests, ranging from mild to severe repression.  

In this context, Neubauer mentions German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s recent comments about black-clad climate activists who repeatedly interrupted him during a talk.  

“I have to say honestly, these antics, staged at various events but always by the same black-clad people, remind me of an era that is, thank God, long past,” said Scholz.  

Some thought the center-left SPD leader was comparing the activists to Nazis, with the chancellery calling that “absurd,” although there was no clarification of what Scholz meant.  

At the same time countries such as Australia, France and the UK have cracked down on civil disobedience like blockades of roads or ports. And in Iran and Kenya, environmental defenders have been subjected to arbitrary arrests.  

“Activism can operate even under the most vicious, repressive conditions,” says Naidoo, who saw “terrible repression” in apartheid South Africa in the 70s and 80s, and whose best friend was murdered by the regime. “It just means we have to be braver; we have to be smarter; we have to be more strategic.”  

But, he adds, that it is becoming increasingly risky for climate activists, who are sometimes paying with their lives.  

UK-based NGO Global Witness reported that in 2020, 227 land and environmental activists were murdered — the worst figure on record.  

Where to next with climate activism?  

Given the dangers climate activists face coupled with the speed at which the world needs to cut itself off from fossil fuels, both Naidoo and Neubauer see a need for creativity and inclusion.  

But what does that look like?  

One tactic is to follow the money and put pressure on banks and insurance companies to stop backing oil and gas majors. That could take the form of lobbying, boycott, and protests.

International environmental group 350.org‘s divestment campaign with which Naidoo is involved, has already seen success when it comes to institutions and funds moving their money out of fossil fuel and into green energy. But that needs to be ramped up, say the activists.  

The movement needs to expand to include people from different backgrounds, who can contribute according to their resources and abilities. That includes intergenerational activism.  

Neubauer explains that she became interested in environmental issues in the first place because of childhood conversations with her grandmother with whom she is now writing a book.

Climate change is not an environmental issue, it is about much more, including livelihoods, human rights, poverty and justice, says Naidoo. This needs to be communicated in imaginative ways on a larger scale, through dance, song and even gaming.  

But to make change, people must also remain hopeful, he added.  

“We’ve got to get people to imagine that it is within our grasp to turn this thing around,” says Naidoo. “This moment of history that we find ourselves in, is one where we have to say that pessimism is a luxury we simply cannot afford.”  

Neil King from Deutsche Welle and Bill McKibben from The Nation conducted this interview on the future of climate activism to mark DW’s teaming up with Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration of more than 500 news outlets, committed to more urgent and informed coverage of climate change. If you’d like to hear more of what Kumi Naidoo and Luisa Neubauer have to say, check out the ‘On the Green Fence’ Podcast.  

Jennifer Collins is multimedia environment reporter and editor for Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster. An award-winning journalist, she’s reported on everything from water scarcity to the damage caused by war to Afghanistan’s environment — a reporting trip that was funded by the European Journalism Centre. 

This story from Deutsche Welle is published here as part of the global media collaboration Covering Climate Now.

Millions of tons of spent solar panels, wind turbine blades and lithium-ion batteries could be wasted in landfills — or put back to use for the clean energy transition.

In the past decade, solar panels, wind turbines and lithium-ion batteries have boomed in production volume and plummeted in price. That’s enabled many countries to accelerate the transition to lower-carbon electricity. It’s also helped electric vehicles become more mainstream, an important step in the push to decarbonize transportation.

To keep global warming from reaching catastrophic levels, production of these clean energy technologies will need to be scaled up by orders of magnitude in the coming decade.

Making all of this happen should be the first priority of anyone who cares about the fate of life on earth. But there’s another pressing priority that can’t be overlooked: A lot of the equipment that will make this crucial transition possible — and the valuable materials used to make it — could end up in landfills. 

If it’s not reused and recycled, this waste could wreak havoc on ecosystems and communities. It could also mean missing out on an accessible source of critical raw materials like lithium and cobalt, which are costly to mine and often produced in environmentally and socially harmful ways.

Today, the volume of panels, turbine blades and batteries nearing the end of their lives is relatively low. But that’s changing fast. Now is the time to ramp up recycling capacity so that it matches the growth of clean technologies that will occur over the next few decades. 

By 2030, the U.S. is expected to be decommissioning about 1 million metric tons of solar panels per year, said Maria Curry-Nkansah, head of the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s circular-economy strategic initiative for advanced energy materials technology — and across the globe, the figure will be about 8 million metric tons a year. The numbers only grow from there. The worldwide total of PV waste could increase nearly tenfold by 2050, to 78million metric tons, according to the International Energy Agency.

Likewise, the roughly 600,000 metric tons of lithium-ion battery waste expected from the first generation of EVs by 2025 is set to grow to 11 million metric tons worldwide by 2030, according to the World Economic Forum. And the volume of wind turbine blades reaching end of life could hit 12 billion metric tons by 2050, according to a 2020 study in the Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy. 

So what can we do today to avoid generating these gargantuan volumes of waste in the future? Experts say the only solution is an aggressive and coordinated effort to set government regulations and establish private-sector investments that enable the recycling of clean energy technologies at massive scale. 

It’s important to point out that there’s a categorical difference between the raw materials of the clean energy economy and those of the fossil-fueled economy. Renewable energy and energy-storage systems don’t burn an irreplaceable resource and cause irreparable harm to the climate and environment in the process. Instead, they capture inexhaustible sources of energy — sunlight and wind. 

But to be considered truly sustainable, these industries need to restructure themselves in ways that allow their products to be recycled at the end of their lives. That’s going to require government mandates to limit their wanton disposal, along with effective regulatory structures to incentivize the private sector to invest in businesses and infrastructure to collect, transport, disassemble, refine, reuse and remanufacture their components. 

It’s also going to demand a lot of innovation, from new technologies for breaking down and reconstituting the components of solar panels, turbine blades and lithium-ion battery cells, to novel approaches to designing products that make their recycling simpler and safer at the end of their lives. 

The underlying challenge of raw materials 

To meet the skyrocketing U.S. and global demand for these clean energy technologies, supplies of key materials must expand dramatically. The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts a quadrupling of total mineral demand for clean energy technologies by 2040 under its Sustainable Development Scenario (SDS), the pathway it prescribes for keeping global temperature rise well under 2 degrees Celsius. The projected demand trajectory for minerals used to make EVs and batteries is particularly dramatic — a greater than thirtyfold increase from today to 2040, with lithium demand growing more than fortyfold in the same timeframe.

Recycling and reuse won’t come anywhere close to eliminating the need for mining and processing ever-larger amounts of these core materials. But they can certainly make a dent. 

Take the example of batteries: By 2040, ​“recycled quantities of copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt from spent batteries could reduce combined primary supply requirements for these minerals by around 10%,” according to an IEAreport on clean energy minerals.

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“In the next 10 to 15 years, recycling is a huge component of [sourcing] the materials we’re going to need for this clean energy transition,” said Megan O’Connor, CEO of Beverly, Massachusetts–based battery and minerals recycling startup Nth Cycle. ​“But even if we recycle 100 percent of the lithium-ion batteries we’re making” by 2030, ​“that only gets us approximately 10 percent of the cobalt we’re going to need.” This underscores the fact that recycling will be most effective in tandem with new technologies that reduce or eliminate the need for various metals. 

Mining, refining and transporting raw materials used in clean energy technologies is costly and energy-intensive. It can also be environmentally harmful and subject to unpredictable interruptions in supply. For example, about 70 percent of the world’s cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it’s mined in ways that harm the environment and have led to human-rights violations. Last year’s White House supply-chain report states that China refines 60 percent of the world’s lithium and 80 percent of the world’s cobalt, which ​“presents a critical vulnerability to the future of the domestic U.S. auto industry.”

Recycling could dramatically reduce those costs and vulnerabilities. For example, this chart from the ReCell Center, a battery recycling consortium led by the U.S. Department of Energy, indicates that a ton of battery-grade lithium could be extracted from 750 tons of lithium brine, 250 tons of lithium ore, or just 28 tons of recycled lithium-ion batteries. The metrics are even better for recycled versus mined and refined cobalt, a key ingredient of today’s most energy-dense lithium-ion batteries.

And the more sophisticated methods of recycling batteries that are beginning to emerge offer the potential to dramatically decrease energy use, water use and emissions of toxic byproducts like sulfur dioxide, according to ReCell.

But a lot needs to happen for these more sophisticated recycling methods to flourish, said Garvin Heath, a senior environmental scientist and member of the resources and sustainability group at NREL’s Strategic Energy Analysis Center. The fundamental barrier right now, ​“especially in the U.S., is that without a government mandate to recycle, there are no economies of scale yet, and costs are high,” he said. 

“We’ve done some cost modeling of PV recycling systems, and indeed, they don’t return the value greater than the cost,” he said. ​“Anecdotally, we’ve heard those costs range from $15 to $30 per module after delivery to the recycling center.” That amounts to roughly one-tenth the cost of a new solar module. 

That’s much higher than the cost to dump the materials in a landfill, Heath said. The secret to making recycling a cost-effective proposition thus lies not only in reducing the costs and increasing the value of recycling but also in increasing the costs of discarding end-of-life clean energy technologies in landfills — or outlawing it altogether. 

The role of regulations

So far, the European Union has taken the global lead in implementing recycling regulations, especially for solar panels and lithium-ion batteries.

For nearly a decade, EU member states have been required to recycle 85 percent of the materials used in solar panels under the EU’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive. The costs of this work are covered by upfront fees on panels entering the European Union, and country-by-country regulations govern how that recycling is managed. The first recycling plant dedicated to PV recycling was opened in France in 2018 by water and waste management conglomerate Veolia, and several more are now being planned. 

Solar panel recycling initiatives in the European Union aren’t yet capturing the full recyclable value of solar panels, however, said Saloni Sachdeva Michael, a solar PV recycling policy expert and German Chancellor Research Fellow with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. That’s because the EU’s regulations are based on collecting and recycling a certain percentage of solar panels based on their weight, which allows recyclers to meet the targets by recycling just the glass and aluminum — the heaviest parts of every panel. 

That leaves out the recovery of the critical materials including silicon, copper and silver that are contained in the electricity-generating parts of the panels, she said. ​“There are a number of pilots going on in Europe” to extract these materials economically, ​“but as far as I know there is no commercially scalable process.”

Even so, Europe is still far ahead of the United States, which lacks any federal-level policy or mandate around solar panel recycling. In fact, only 15 states in the U.S. have bans on landfill disposal of electronic consumer devices that could include solar panels, according to a 2021 NREL study.

As for state-level solar recycling policies, only Washington state has passed a law to require solar manufacturers to cover the costs of recovering and recycling solar panels, and implementation of that law has been delayed for years. U.S. solar leader California has recently taken the less aggressive but still useful step of categorizing solar panels as ​“universal waste,” which could make collection and recycling less costly and complex than for items categorized as hazardous waste. New York state is exploring a similar change. 

Lithium-ion battery recycling policies are also far more advanced in the EU than in the U.S., NREL’s Heath said. In Europe, the EU has a litany of requirements for the reuse and recycling of battery materials, as well as requiring manufacturers to design batteries to be more easily recycled and mandating that new batteries include a minimum amount of recycled content. By 2027, battery and vehicle manufacturers will need to provide easily accessible information on the quantities and sources of cobalt, lithium, nickel and lead in every battery sold. 

Adding to an existing framework of regulations, these new mandates are spurring significant investments in battery recycling in Europe. Umicore, the Belgium-based global minerals and materials processing company, launched the world’s first industrial-scale lithium-ion battery recycling facility in 2011. It now recovers copper, cobalt and nickel in volumes of 7,000 metric tons per year, and has expanded into lithium recovery as well, a company spokesperson said in an email. Umicore has inked battery recycling agreements with automakers Audi, BMW, Volkswagen and Tesla in Europe.

The U.S., by contrast, doesn’t even have consistent state-by-state regulations for the collection and disposal of batteries used in consumer electronics, let alone EV batteries. No federal or state laws require the recycling of EV batteries or assign responsibility for funding that recycling, Heath said. California is the furthest ahead in developing such regulations; it has an advisory group that recommended policies on EV battery recycling to the state legislature earlier this year. North Carolina and New Jersey have also created similar commissions. 

At the federal level, a bill that would set up a similar task force to develop regulatory pathways for battery recycling has so far failed to advance in Congress. The infrastructure law passed by Congress in 2021 contained several billion dollars in R&D grants for battery recycling and materials processing, but it lacks funding for scaling up recycling. 

This slow progress could put U.S. automakers and battery manufacturers at risk of being disadvantaged in markets like the EU that set strict recyclability and recycled-content mandates on products being sold within their borders, said Emily Burlinghaus, a German Chancellor Fellow based at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies. ​“The EU is the second-largest market for EV sales,” she said. 

In the absence of a U.S. tracking and compliance mandate for sustainable battery manufacturing, the Global Battery Alliance, a group of more than 100 institutions including U.S. automakers and miners like Tesla, Rivian, and Controlled Thermal Resources, is stepping in to develop a ​“battery passport” program that could fill in the gaps, Burlinghaus pointed out. 

If U.S.-based recyclers are ever to gain a global competitive standing, regulatory support will be vital. Today, most electronics recycling is done outside the U.S., much of it in environmentally hazardous ways. China, which dominates the world’s primary lithium-ion battery materials industry, also hosts the majority of the world’s nascent lithium-ion battery recycling capacity. 

“There are lots of critical pieces of the supply chain — not just mining, not just refining — that have gone to China,” Nth Cycle’s O’Connor noted. ​“Now we’re trying to claw it back.” 

The economics of recycling clean energy technologies

Regulations are essential to spur the growth of the complex chain of businesses needed to drive down recycling costs, said Thea Soule, chief commercial officer at Ecobat. A global recycler of lead-acid car batteries, Ecobat is now applying what it has learned in its main line of business to the task of recycling lithium-ion batteries. 

“When we think about the economies around recycling [lead-acid] batteries, the ability for technology to catch up with the inherent value of that metal was crucial to create this positive feedback loop” of scale and profitability, Soule said. 

About 99 percent of all lead-acid batteries are recycled in the U.S. today, she said. That’s the result of decades of public policy and private-sector investment working together. Most states prohibit the disposal of lead-acid batteries in landfills, and many require auto dealers or manufacturers to retrieve and recycle them. Most lead-acid batteries share the same simple roster of materials and form factors, allowing simple disassembly, often in automated facilities. 

Those processes are tightly regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to mitigate risks to workers and the environment. And the lead that comes out the other end is of high quality, allowing it to be sold for a tidy profit. 

But lithium-ion batteries are a far different prospect. They include a multitude of different chemistries that are under continuous development and come in different form factors, from consumer electronics and power tools to EVs and stationary storage applications. The U.S. lacks any common regulations or standards for how lithium-ion batteries can be diverted to recyclers in volumes needed to reach profitable scale.

What’s more, lithium-ion batteries can overheat, catch fire and explode if improperly handled, earning them a ​“hazardous materials” designation from the EPA. Developing standards to manage the collection, transportation and secondary-market creation for end-of-life EV batteries ​“is a big piece of the challenge,” Curry-Nkansah said. 

The uncertainty, risk and complexity of managing this type of waste make it hard for any single company to confidently invest in the lithium-ion recycling chain. To date, the U.S. recycling rate for lithium-ion batteries of all categories is less than 20 percent, Soule said. 

“That statistic is a lot different in Europe because of the regulations around recycling and end of life,” which ​“encourage a nascent market to become efficient and allow the technology to catch up,” she said. 

The U.S. landscape is starting to change on this front, though, driven by the Biden administration’s efforts to secure domestic battery manufacturing and supply chains and a growing recognition from U.S. automakers of the importance of building recyclability into their plans. 

Li-Cycle, a startup that went public via special-purpose acquisition company merger last year, has a deal with Ultium Cells, the battery joint venture of General Motors and LG Chem, and is planning a recycling facility near Ultium’s Ohio battery plant. It’s also working with mining giant Glencore, which invested $200 million in Li-Cycle last month. 

Redwood Materials, the battery recycling startup founded by Tesla co-founder JB Straubel that raised more than $700 million from investors, is planning to invest more than $1 billion in facilities to produce battery anodes and cathodes from recycled and ​“sustainably mined” materials. It has a partnership with Ford and is working with Ford and Volvo to fund the free collection of spent EV batteries in California. (Read more about Li-Cycle, Redwood and other companies recycling lithium-ion batteries.)

Both of these startups are promising their technologies can recover, on average, more than 95 percent of the valuable constituent materials of lithium-ion batteries. But they haven’t yet revealed data on the costs of their recycling processes or sourcing batteries. 

A recent analysis from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a leading global metals analysis firm, identified what it called the ​“multiple threats” that might prevent lithium-ion battery recycling from reaching scale and profitability in the U.S. They include low collection rates from customers, a highly heterogeneous range of battery chemistries and formats to deal with, and a varied and uncertain value for the metals that can be recovered from the process. 

“This variability around what is a lithium-ion battery makes it difficult for you to value and perform the operation of recycling, because your extraction techniques can vary widely,” Ecobat’s Soule said. 

Can these processes of collection, transport, disassembly and core recycling produce end materials at a price the market can bear? It’s a highly complex calculation. The Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory has developed a tool to model battery recycling costs and environmental impacts dubbed EverBatt. It can put some hard figures to the task of assessing the cost-effectiveness of various recycling approaches at different scales and stages of process improvement, as well as under a variety of pricing scenarios for different metals and chemicals. 

In an ironic twist, some efforts to lower upfront costs and environmental impacts of the raw materials used in clean energy technologies may also reduce their recycling value. Lithium-ion battery makers are working on designs that use less cobalt and more lower-cost metals like zinc or iron, for example — a step that could significantly reduce the costs and harms stemming from cobalt mining, but also remove one of the highest-value metals from the list of those that can be recovered by recyclers. 

From recycling to a circular economy? 

Finding ways to recycle solar panels, lithium-ion batteries and other clean-energy products as they’re made today is a pressing issue. But just as important is redesigning products on the front end so that their end-of-life recyclability is as simple and cost-effective as possible. 

“We need a well-considered approach that includes applying circular-economy principles for resource management and supply-chain resiliency,” Curry-Nkansah said. NREL’s research on the circular economy for clean energy materials is aimed at developing new materials with lower costs and lower environmental impacts and extending their useful lives. It also promotes the concepts of ​“remanufacture” and ​“reuse” — disassembling and putting back together products and their individual components without breaking them down to their constituent elements, as recycling does.

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NREL’s circular-economy work also includes research into how to make products that use fewer and different materials in ways that reduce total carbon and waste emissions, as well as how to more efficiently manage their decommissioning, collection and transport to lower the costs of returning them to the supply chain. 

In terms of batteries, NREL has been focusing much of its research on ​“direct recycling,” Curry-Nkasah said — a term for a process that leaves battery cathodes intact instead of shredding them so they can be reused in new batteries. This can allow for the reuse of a broader array of battery component materials, including cathodes for battery chemistries such as lithium iron phosphate that are cheaper to produce but worth less to recyclers. 

The EU’s battery regulations take circularity into account with their emphasis on designing lithium-ion EV batteries that can both use recycled content and be more easily recycled at end of life. Umicore, BMW and Swedish lithium-ion battery manufacturer Northvolt are working on a ​“closed life-cycle loop” battery facility aimed at putting these principles into practice. 

A number of researchers and companies are exploring how to design solar panels made of more durable and less toxic materials in configurations that allow for easier disassembly or simpler reuse or recycling options. Manufacturers of wind turbines are undergoing similar efforts with composite fiberglass blades, which are difficult and costly to disassemble or recycle today.

To make all of this happen, manufacturers of solar panels, wind turbine blades and lithium-ion batteries will need compelling reasons to prioritize these potentially costly design and materials decisions. That will require public policies that discourage private-sector parties from ignoring these factors in a quest to lower costs and compete for market share, and encourage them to work together on designing products that offer financial as well as environmental rewards. 

The ultimate goal is to create a true ​“circular economy” for these devices, Heath said. ​“We have to [recycle] — eventually products get to end of life.” But given the massive growth in clean energy technologies and the resulting demand for raw materials, ​“recycling should be the last choice, basically.”

Solarcycle is proud to support Canary’s Recycling Renewables series. Solarcycle offers solar asset owners a low-cost, eco-friendly, comprehensive process for retiring solar systems. We pull out valuable metals such as silver, silicon and aluminum and have the technology to recycle 95% of panels currently in use. Follow Solarcycle on LinkedIn as we ramp up to meet this pivotally important challenge at giga-factory scale.

This story originally appeared at Canary Media and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story, of which Real Leaders is a member.