Sustainability of BSLBATT Industrial Lithium Batteries

The world today is growing more conscious about the environment and increasingly oriented towards ecological transition. In this context, combining economic growth with sustainability has become a requisite of innovation. This is more so in rapidly evolving sectors such as electrification.

As a lithium battery maker, BSLBATT Battery, has stood out over the years for its commitment in the road to sustainability and to reducing its environmental impact. Investment in research and development has become its strong point and, in alignment with its values, the company also contributes to saving energy and the conservation of resources.

A challenge at both the entrepreneurial and organisational level, we have continuously worked towards the constant improvement of the many diverse aspects of our business, from the product chain to the reduction of the overall consumption levels at our headquarters to the well-being of our employees. We are conscious of the fact that adoption of sustainable development practices and business success are closely linked, leading to not only improvements in environmental performance, but also economic advantages such as cost reductions and greater competitiveness.

Traction Lithium Batteries: Sustainability and Environmental Concern Behind Industry’s Choice of BSLBATT Batteries Since 2012

Ever since BSLBATT Battery – Industrial was established in 2012, Our Industrial Choice has been working towards the ambitious goal of 100% green innovation with sustainable lithium batteries for all types of forklifts used in all industries. The concept of sustainable development is inherent in the word “electrification”, which represents the opening of a path to zero emissions and an energy transition, leading to more and more manufacturers abandoning polluting fossil resources. For BSLBATT Battery – Industrial, this effort first involved product design.

Working with customers as energy transition consultants

In supporting all types of forklift truck manufacturers or forklift truck dealers used in all industries towards energy transition through sustainable technological innovation, we start from the design stage; that’s our distinctive way of working. This is precisely where we began, developing technologies and producing fully custom, high added-value lithium batteries that could lead to increasingly wide-ranging sustainability by making our skills and know-how available to customers.

Our role as producers of lithium batteries for Industrial is to create knowledge and skills in the world of electrification. We do this by illustrating the advantages of a green, zero-emissions power supply and by walking customers through the process in order to identify the electrification solution best suited to their requirements.

Cobalt-free lithium chemistry with long life-cycles

The BSLBATT Battery – Industrial engineering team zeroed in on Li-Fe-PO4 technology as the best choice for industrial lithium batteries powering material-handling equipment and off-highway EVs (Class I, II, and III electric lift trucks; tugs; personnel and burden carriers; sweepers; scrubbers; and aerial platforms). We use LFP lithium cells in BSLBATT batteries, with a low environmental impact, which

● Provide the best equipment performance;

● Satisfy the requirements of high-power, demanding applications;

● Exhibit the longest cycle life of a battery;

● Ensure the top safety level of operation and reduce operation maintenance costs.

In fact, LFP (lithium – iron – phosphate) chemistry is the safest and most stable you can find on the market and, as required by industrial systems, it is available in large-capacity formats without the need to connect many small cells in parallel that would lower the stability level and compromise the safety of the vehicle. But it also provides another important added value: it is completely cobalt-free. Cobalt, a hard-to-dispose-of material, has a high environmental impact.

Reducing the use of cobalt or, better yet, finding solutions that are free of this material, as in our case, is becoming increasingly important today for 3 main reasons:

1. Cobalt is a rare metal and due to the high demand, deposits are being rapidly depleted. It is estimated that we could have shortages as early as 2025.

2. It generates an ethical problem because half of the deposits are located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where child labour still exists and the many illegal mines lead to corruption and guerrilla groups.

3. It is becoming more and more expensive due to the difficulty in sourcing the material and the effort it takes to mine it.

In addition, BSLBATT Battery’s industrial lithium battery and independent IoT lithium module won the Innovation Award, have an exceedingly long life, recording today over 4,000 charge and discharge cycles, and their performance does not change over time. This means that in most cases the battery will outlive the machine it is powering.

See why BSLBATT industrial lithium batteries are different from the competition

Research and Development of high-tech solutions for a sustainable chain

We keep a steady gaze on an ever-more sustainable future and anticipate worldwide demands and regulations by continuously investing in research into efficiency- and sustainability-oriented materials and skills.

This is the focal point of our Research and Development department, which today accounts for over 35% of the staff and every day works to come up with solutions that do not impact the environment negatively while anticipating the needs of our customers worldwide through accurate design of each lithium battery and use of cutting-edge systems that ensure a sustainability-aligned production.

As a result, the performance of the product is designed for compatibility with low environmental impact production processes where end-of-life battery disposal and recovery  is a topic of focus. Behind BSLBATT Battery’s commitment to research is the intention to create synergies so that the entire sector can begin to produce in accordance with sustainability criteria by researching into more efficient and easily recycled materials that are in alignment with the concepts of:

Sustainable design: avoiding the use, during the construction process, of materials that are harmful to the environment and removing pollution-causing steps from production processes

Dismantle-ready design: designing the battery with agile mechanics, making it easy to open and speeding up end-of-life dismantling processes

Recycle-ready design: factoring the use of easily-recycled materials in the design stage.

BSLBATT Battery HQ: En route to carbon neutrality and plastic-free status

Protecting the planet by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energies to foster a more sustainable economy is a need felt by an increasing number of governments, industries and administrations around the globe. However, environmental responsibility is everyone’s duty and we all should be taking concrete actions at an individual level to support the sustainable development of society.

At BSLBATT Battery, our intention is to become a Plastic-Free and Carbon-Neutral company consistent with the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Moreover, in 2020 we undertook to cut down on waste and today have eliminated the use of plastic bottles in our facility, replaced by glass bottles distributed through 5 water vending machines.

Lastly, to reduce the environmental impact of our lithium-ion battery production, we adopted a lean approach to optimise our supply chain. We now give preference to a short supply chain, sourcing our supplies within a radius of 50 km and implementing a methodology that uses the least amount of resources in order to make production processes leaner, less polluting, and free of processing waste. For example, we have eliminated plastic from most of our packaging over the last few years, starting the process of replacing it with materials from renewable sources.

ISO 14001 Environmental Certification: Our Commitment is Unwavering

To have something to show for the important work done over the last few years, BSLBATT Battery decided to take the steps to adopt the ISO 14001 standard, and achieved the prestigious DNV environmental management system certification in January 2022. The certification stands as proof that we are taking practical actions to minimise the immediate and long-term environmental impact of our processes, products and services and is a reassurance for all stakeholders that our environmental management system complies with the international legislative standards for our industry.

Our achievement of the ISO 14001 certification is, therefore, both a goal reached and the starting point to another. It enabled us to put our commitment to the environment down in writing, to keep track of the sustainable activities we have implemented and, most importantly, to monitor the direct and indirect impact every facet of our business is having on the environment. We are, however, aware that there are still many other actions to take with a 360-degree perspective in order to create an integrated system with an increasingly lower impact on the environment.