Shared micromobility firm Lime has reached an settlement to ship batteries utilized in its scooters and e-bikes to Redwood Supplies, which can extract and recycle important minerals similar to lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper.
The settlement introduced Monday makes Redwood Supplies the unique battery recycling associate for Lime’s shared scooters and e-bikes positioned in cities all through the USA, Germany, and the Netherlands. The settlement doesn’t cowl each area by which Lime operates, an inventory that features cities all through Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Lime has had different recycling partnerships previously, notably with Sprout by way of its downstream distributors. Nonetheless, that is the primary time the shared micromobility firm has had a direct relationship with a battery recycler in North America that may immediately course of materials for restoration and return it to the availability chain.
Redwood Supplies, the Carson Metropolis, Nevada-based startup based by former Tesla CFO JB Straubel, will recuperate supplies from the batteries as soon as they’ll not be used. As soon as recovered and recycled, the supplies will probably be reintroduced within the battery manufacturing course of. This closed-loop manufacturing system — which might cut back demand for mining and refining minerals — is on the coronary heart of Redwood Supplies’ enterprise mannequin.
The hassle additionally aligns with Lime’s personal sustainability targets. Lime has a aim to decarbonize its enterprise by 2030. The corporate has made progress in decreasing Scope 1, 2, and three emissions by 59.5% in 5 years from its 2019 baseline years. Lime plans to report its 2024 Carbon Emissions leads to Could.
“This collaboration marks important progress in direction of establishing a extra round provide chain, serving to guarantee our batteries are usually not solely responsibly recycled as soon as they attain their finish of life, however that their supplies are returned into the battery provide chain,” Andrew Savage, VP for Sustainability at Lime, stated in an announcement.
Lime additionally has partnerships with Gomi within the U.Ok. and VoltR in France and different European nations to reap these viable battery cells for “second life” purposes, together with for client electronics, similar to moveable audio system and battery packs, amongst different makes use of.
Redwood Supplies has agreements with different micromobility corporations, together with Lyft, Rad Energy Bikes, and Specialised to recycle their e-bike and scooter batteries. Redwood, which has raised greater than $2 billion in non-public funds, introduced earlier this month it has opened an R&D heart in San Francisco.
