ILiA PCF official

New guidance to establish a standard approach to calculating the carbon footprint of lithium. To learn more join our free webinars on March 20th.

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, March 13, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The International Lithium Association (ILiA) has launched the first guidance that provides the global lithium industry with a standardised approach to calculating the carbon footprint of producing lithium carbonate and hydroxide and other lithium products.

“It is important to have product carbon footprint (PCF) methodology that is consistent across the globe to allow for the accurate calculation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and for making meaningful comparisons,” said Anand Sheth, ILiA’s Founding Chairman.

The groundbreaking guidance was created under the stewardship of Mark de Boer, vice president of sustainability at Albemarle Corporation who chairs ILiA’s Sustainable Lithium Subcommittee. The project received input from 45 organisations across the lithium industry and was managed by Drielsma Resources Europe.

“We encourage anyone who intends to create a PCF for a lithium product to use this guidance because it will increase the comparability of studies. Users are invited to reference this guidance and provide us with feedback to ensure this document serves as a common point of reference for the industry” said de Boer. The guidance is a short, practical document which addresses everything relevant to a lithium PCF. It contains a checklist of GHG hotspots in lithium production to avoid emissions being left out of a PCF calculation. Co-products and their management are included in the guidance.

Lithium expert Peter Ehren said: “It has remarkable how ILiA guided and consulted industry players to publish the first lithium PCF guidance. The objective is that, in the future, the numbers tell the tale with maximum transparency, making the lithium supply chain more sustainable.”

The lithium PCF guidance is agnostic to the production route and can be applied to brine, hard rock and clays. Given the broad participation and the compliance with existing, more general standards ILiA expects this guidance to become the leading reference for anyone determining the PCF of a lithium product.

Laurens Tijsseling, Director at Minviro said: “The introduction of product carbon footprint (PCF) guidance marks a significant advancement for the lithium industry, offering a unified framework to accurately assess the carbon footprints of various lithium production processes.”

The new guidance enables PCFs to be made in the context of the lithium industry by interpreting and complying with all relevant standards. It does not compete with existing standards.

“There is growing demand to understand the environmental hotspots in lithium production. This development of a standardised approach in carbon footprint accounting will allow for an apples to apples comparison between sources of material” said Sarah Colbourn, Acting Head of Sustainability at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

The guidance is available for download at www.lithium.org

Roland Chavasse
International Lithium Association
+44 7855 772448
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