CATL announces carbon neutrality for core operations, targets the entire value chain by 2035

In Ningde, Fujian, battery-factory production lines are already operating at a TWh-level (terawatt-hour-level) shipment scale. On August 17, CATL announced that it had achieved carbon neutrality for its core operations by the end of 2025, saying it was the only battery manufacturer in the world to achieve this goal at that shipment scale. Core operations refer to a company’s own production and operating activities; for a battery factory, this primarily means emissions from factory electricity use and thermal energy.

This is not a model factory that has stopped operating. CATL said it produced 748GWh of batteries in 2025, while lithium-ion battery sales grew 2.3 times from 2022 to 2025.

By the end of 2025, 20 of the company’s battery factories had passed ISO 14068-1 carbon-neutrality certification, and the share of zero-carbon electricity used in core operations had reached 100%. Since 2023, the company has used more than 18 billion kWh of zero-carbon electricity in total. Energy consumption per unit of product at its production bases fell 28% from 2022, carbon-emissions intensity declined by approximately 77% over two years, and cumulative emissions reductions exceeded 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.

CATL has incorporated this approach into a management tool called “CATL Carbon Chain.” The company said its team had mapped nearly 40 battery-production processes and upstream materials, created more than 1,000 product and raw-material models, and extended the platform to mining, raw-material refining, material synthesis and component manufacturing. To date, the platform has completed carbon-data calculations for more than 100 core tier-one suppliers.

The bigger gap lies outside the factory. CATL said that more than 80% of the carbon emissions across its products’ lifecycles come from the supply chain, whose total emissions exceed those of core operations by more than five times. The company has therefore set a 2035 target of carbon neutrality across the value chain, from mineral resources to finished batteries. It is developing action plans covering four areas—raw-material research and development, raw-material production, logistics and transportation, and recycling—while also launching in-depth collaboration with 30 core suppliers.

For individual companies, this means that low-carbon performance is no longer just the factory’s own responsibility. CATL plans to issue green-procurement guidelines that will incorporate carbon footprints, renewable-energy shares and energy consumption per unit of product into supplier admission and audits. For suppliers, the ability to provide traceable carbon data could affect cooperation; for CATL, the supply chain is the main battleground determining a product’s overall carbon footprint. The European Union is expected to gradually implement battery carbon-footprint restrictions between 2027 and 2028, while China has announced that it will launch a carbon-footprint reporting pilot for new-energy-vehicle power-battery products in 2026. All of the emissions-reduction data and targets above were disclosed by CATL; a comprehensive independent review has yet to be made public.