XYCLE INCLUDED IN VERDANTIX SMART INNOVATORS 2025
Circularity, ecodesign & recycled content
Circularity you can measure, recycled content you can prove
For product, brand and sustainability leaders facing recycled content mandates and ecodesign rules: circular strategies modelled to the formula regulators prescribe, with the evidence to back every claim.
We will use the session to match you with the analyst who would run your project.
65%
lower climate impact
achievable for recycled NdPr magnets versus primary production, with process optimisation
Together with Minviro, we’ve modelled an LCA with high credibility, which allows us to present the LCA to our business partners with comfort. In addition, it forms a solid basis for many of our sustainability targets, and thus has created value beyond compliance.
Andreas Forfang, Vice President Sustainability & Public Affairs at Vianode
Circularity
Circularity stopped being voluntary. The counting rules arrived with it.
Recycled content is becoming a legal product specification with dates attached, circular claims now need product-level proof, and — the part most strategies miss — recycled doesn't automatically mean lower impact. The rules don't just require circularity; they prescribe how it's counted. That formula is an LCA.
Strategic Accounts Manager at Minviro
Recycled content is becoming a product spec, with dates
EU batteries must declare recycled cobalt, lithium, nickel and lead shares from August 2028, and meet minimums — 16% cobalt, 6% lithium, 6% nickel, 85% lead — from August 2031. Ecodesign rules are extending the same logic product group by product group. Sourcing decisions land now.
Circular claims now need product-level proof
Generic environmental claims are banned in the EU from September 2026, and battery passports make recycled content publicly checkable from February 2027. A claim without traceable, methodology-correct evidence behind it is now a liability, not a marketing asset.
Recycled doesn't automatically mean lower impact
Our published modelling found generic hydrometallurgical recycling of LFP batteries can carry a greater net environmental impact — even with total material substitution. The route, the energy, and the allocation method decide. Only an LCA tells you whether your circular option actually wins.
WHY IT'S DIFFERENT
From circular ambition to a circular footprint you can defend
Which circular route wins, what does the prescribed formula say it's worth, and will the claim survive verification? One model answers all three — strategy, compliance and evidence never diverge.
Official CFF parameters, applied automatically
Aligned with EU Battery Regulation and PEF
Cradle-to-grave, input and end-of-life circularity
Recycled vs primary, route by route
Design, reuse and recycling options compared
Comparative assertions backed by critical review
Declaration, passport and claim from one model
Mass balance validated at unit-process level
Audit trail a reviewer can re-perform
FROM MINVIRO'S RESEARCH
Circularity is a systems question, not a slogan. Our published work combines system dynamics with prospective LCA across lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and manganese flows — and it shows that second-life use delays material recovery, manufacturing scrap carries early recycling capacity, and some recycling routes lose to redesign. The numbers and the deadlines below are why this matters now.
65%
Lower climate impact achievable for recycled NdPr rare earth magnets versus primary production, with process optimisation — 35% before it.
Minviro on Graphite Production (2021)
16%
Minimum recycled cobalt, lithium, nickel and lead content for EV, SLI and industrial batteries on the EU market from 18 August 2031 — declared and documented from August 2028.
Minviro for Twin Metals Minnesota (2023)
25%
The share of the EU's annual raw material consumption that domestic recycling capacity must be able to meet by 2030 — recycled feedstock is now supply security policy.
Minviro for Deutsche Bahn's (2025)
2027
Battery passports become mandatory for EV, LMT and industrial batteries — making recycled content and footprint data publicly checkable, product by product.
Minviro for Apple (2025)
HOW IT WORKS
How to build a circularity strategy that survives verification
How does the LCA process work with Minviro?
Step 1
Model the loop
A cradle-to-grave LCA of your product with the Circular Footprint Formula applied — recycled inputs, recovery at end of life, quality factors — on your primary data, not industry averages.
Step 2
Compare the routes
Recycled versus primary, design change versus recycling, direct recycling versus hydrometallurgy — each option modelled in the same system, so the winner is a finding, not an assumption.
Step 3
Evidence the claim
The winning route becomes your declaration data, passport record and claim substantiation — generated from the same model, documented for independent review, updated as your supply chain changes.
DELIVERABLES
What can a circularity engagement with Minviro include?
For the teams designing circular products, sourcing recycled feedstock, and signing off the claims.
Cradle-to-grave LCA with the Circular Footprint Formula (EF 3.1)
The foundation: circularity counted the way the regulation and PEF prescribe it, so your number and the regulator's number are the same number.
A full life cycle model with official CFF parameters across 16+ impact categories.
Recycled vs primary comparison study
Settles whether the circular route actually wins — environmentally and per impact category — before you commit capital or publish the claim.
Side-by-side LCA of recycled, primary and hybrid sourcing options, route by route.
Recycled content declaration support (Battery Reg, Article 8)
The documentation behind your declared cobalt, lithium, nickel and lead shares — traceable to source, structured for the August 2028 requirement and the 2031 minimums.
Declaration-ready recycled content data with full lineage.
Ecodesign scenario analysis
Quantifies design choices before they're locked in: material substitution, recycled feedstock, repairability, lightweighting — each as a modelled scenario with its impact delta.
Design options compared in one system, at the stage where most of the impact is decided.
Chain-of-custody data structure
Recycled content claims fail on traceability. Supplier data is collected, source-labelled and mass-balance-validated at unit-process level — so every declared percentage traces to a flow.
Governed supplier and material-flow data in XYCLE, with automatic mass-in/mass-out checks.
Verification & Third Party Audits
Mandatory territory here: public comparative assertions — "recycled X beats primary Y" — require independent review. This is the statement that lets you say it out loud.
Independent third-party review with the accompanying statement.
Case studies
Work we have delivered
Across battery materials, mining, rail, electronics, and emerging manufacturing, across 46 countries.
Why the same product gets different results in different LCA software
Why the same product gets different results in different LCA software
Why the same product gets different results in different LCA software
Why the same product gets different results in different LCA software
The Carbon Footprint of a Battery: Why It’s a Property of the Supply Chain, Not the Cell, and Why That’s Now a Market-Access Question
The Carbon Footprint of a Battery: Why It’s a Property of the Supply Chain, Not the Cell, and Why That’s Now a Market-Access Question
The Carbon Footprint of a Battery: Why It’s a Property of the Supply Chain, Not the Cell, and Why That’s Now a Market-Access Question
The Carbon Footprint of a Battery: Why It’s a Property of the Supply Chain, Not the Cell, and Why That’s Now a Market-Access Question
The Carbon Footprint of Solar Panel Manufacturing: Why It’s a Range, Not a Number, and Why That Range Now Decides Tenders
The Carbon Footprint of Solar Panel Manufacturing: Why It’s a Range, Not a Number, and Why That Range Now Decides Tenders
The Carbon Footprint of Solar Panel Manufacturing: Why It’s a Range, Not a Number, and Why That Range Now Decides Tenders
The Carbon Footprint of Solar Panel Manufacturing: Why It’s a Range, Not a Number, and Why That Range Now Decides Tenders
SOLUTION
Been asked to prove your recycled content? Send us the request.
Forward what you've received — the Article 8 documentation ask, the customer circularity questionnaire, the ecodesign requirement. An analyst tells you what evidence it actually demands, which methodology it names, and whether your current data can support it.