Lithium Industry Association, with Albemarle Support, Develops Product Carbon Footprint Guidance  

Nov. 20, 2024

With significant support from Albemarle, the International Lithium Association (ILiA) was established as a global trade association for the lithium industry and to represent the entire lithium value chain.  

Though it is a relatively young industry association, ILiA has successfully gathered leaders from various parts of the value chain to represent members’ interests and to address key technical and commercial challenges. 

One successful collaboration is the group’s publication this year of guidance to create a product carbon footprint (PCF) assessment for key lithium intermediates and battery-grade lithium carbonate and hydroxide specialty chemicals produced from brine or rock minerals in a standardized way.  

Because of the growth in production and demands from regulators and customers for information on greenhouse gas emissions, developing product carbon footprint assessments has become a timely challenge.  

Mark de Boer, Albemarle’s vice president of sustainability, leads the group’s Sustainable Lithium Subcommittee, which managed the PCF project.  

“We encourage anyone who intends to create a PCF of a lithium product to use this guidance because it will increase the comparability of studies,” he said. “We also invite users to reference this guidance in order to create a common baseline and provide us with feedback.”  

This is the first PCF guidance specific to the lithium industry.  It provides clear instructions and examples of how to manage the contribution of co-products. It is agnostic to the production route, such as brine, rock, etc.  

The new ILiA guidance is not another standard, but a guide for developing a PCF in the context of the lithium industry by interpreting and complying with all relevant standards. 

The guidance addresses and summarizes key issues in the dozens of relevant standards in a short, practical document. 

“The standardized guidance on how to measure the product environmental footprint of carbon use in lithium mining and refining will have a major impact in streamlining how lithium PCFs are done,” wrote Anand Sheth, ILiA’s founding chair, in the Lithium Voice. 

The next project for the Sustainable Lithium Subcommittee, already underway, is product environmental footprint guidance that focuses on water use.