Polestar partners with Circulor to hit carbon-neutral car goal by 2030

Polestar has teamed up with blockchain provider Circulor as it sets its sights on producing a carbon-neutral car by 2030.

Polestar already works with Circulor on the traceability of cobalt in the batteries for the Polestar 2 electric performance fastback. The two companies have now set a progressive target that aims to entail a range of raw materials, focusing on those with risks in either environmental and/or human rights, such as nickel, mica, manganese, graphite and lithium, amongst others.

Polestar says the aim with CO₂e tracking is to see the embedded emissions that have been created as part of the production process, per facility as well as those inherited from suppliers through the supply chain. The greenhouse gas tracking solution offered by Circulor enables a more accurate CO₂e footprint than using generic emissions data from databases. ​

Consumers will be able to follow the journey thanks to Polestar’s Product Sustainability Declaration, which discloses carbon footprint and traced risk materials through labelling on the company website and in Polestar Spaces.

Polestar CEO, Thomas Ingenlath, said: “Caring about ethics and the environment is key to Polestar. This unprecedented level of traceability means that Polestar can promote sustainable and ethical practices in its supply chain, and provide better transparency for consumers.”

Douglas Johnson-Poensgen, Circulor CEO, added: “We are delighted to be a strategic partner of Polestar and play a key role in enabling supply chain transparency for Polestar, its suppliers and its customers. Our platform’s ability to dynamically track and attribute CO2e across the supply chain will help enable Polestar’s moonshot goal to create a climate-neutral car by 2030.”

Circulor supports businesses in achieving more sustainable supply chains and works with blockchain technology to trace materials. A blockchain is a digital ledger containing a list of records linked to each other via cryptography. A ‘digital twin’ for the raw material being traced is created and the material is then tracked through the supply chain, creating a digital thread that follows and records the various industrial processes and transformations it undergoes.

This means that the source and the methods by which the raw materials are extracted, processed and transported, can be better regulated, helping to ensure that the materials used in battery production come from the expected mines or recycling facilities.