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Objectives

The project will work to achieve five key objectives over the course of three years.

Objective 1

Identify gaps in current due diligence practices and assess manufacturing industry needs in respect to compliance with sustainability standards and regulation.

Objective 2

Develop and test a portfolio of digital, mineralogical and geochemical technological solutions reinforcing the transparency and traceability of complex CRM supply chains.

Objective 3

Integrate this portfolio with a generic certification scheme for CRM supply chains from the mine to the manufactured and recycled products.

Objective 4

Integrate technological solutions into digital product passports, such as the battery passport, using a decentralised approach.

Objective 5

Facilitate the uptake, implementation and exploitation of the project’s technologies and certification scheme by end-users and key stakeholders.

Impacts

The project expects to make significant impacts on complex CRM supply chains.

Improve supply chain data transparency & traceability

MaDiTraCe will demonstrate the decentralised management of certified product information linked by a blockchain-secured digital trail made accessible by the Digital Product Passport. The project will facilitate the transition from a manual and paper-based process to a digitalised system to overcome supply chain fragmentation.

Set up technological solutions for tracking raw material flows

The main technological innovation of the project is the combination of technical material traceability and digital product traceability solutions into an integrated toolkit adapted to the complexity of CRM supply chains. Technical material traceability solutions include the use of material fingerprinting and artificial tagging. Digital product traceability solutions include blockchain, decentralised identifiers (DIDs), wallet and smart contract technology.

Enable sustainable sourcing of raw materials

The project will enable companies to prove their sustainability claims through its transparent and coherent certification scheme paired with its technological traceability toolkit. Sustainability criteria proposed will be in line with EU regulation and tailored to the key supply chains addressed by the project based on a thorough supply chain operations analysis.

Identify & address gaps in due diligence

The MaDiTraCe project will conduct a thorough analysis of the supply chains of key commodities including cobalt, lithium, natural graphite and rare earth elements. Obstacles to compliance with due diligence regulation and voluntary responsible sourcing initiatives will be analysed and addressed in close collaboration with project stakeholders.

Develop comparable criteria, reporting & audit approaches

MaDiTraCe will support the harmonisation of sustainability reporting standards by building on the CERA 4in1 certification system through the addition of Digital Product Passport technology. This system will cover the full supply chain, starting upstream with sustainable mineral exploration and recovery, to product manufacturing and end product recycling.

Support the implementation of the EU Action Plan on CRMs

A life cycle assessment will be conducted for the supply chains of CRMs that are crucial to the e-mobility, battery and magnet markets. MaDiTraCe will also tackle secondary resources such as end-of-life electric vehicles, tailing, and landfills using mapping exercises developed in previous projects.