Constituent materials, like graphite, in LIBs have ranging environmental impacts depending on the resource type that they are sourced from, the technology used in the production route, energy and material inputs including water consumption, electricity grid mix, as well as the reagents and chemicals used in production.

Natural and synthetic graphite can have different performance characteristics in the anode, but is an ever-present in most commercial batteries due to it meeting the voltage requirements of most common Li-ion cathodes, its relative affordability, and extremely light, porous and durable physical properties.

Commercial databases for the carbon intensity of graphite products and projects are significantly underestimated in previous LCA databases due to poor data quality, conservative energy contributions or omitting upstream scope 3 emissions (i.e., embodied impact of consumables), and non regionalised data.

With graphite demand increasing, new projects and production routes will be developed for both natural and synthetic anode grade graphite. It is critical that life cycle assessment is applied at the development stage of these projects to ensure that all impact mitigation opportunities are explored.