Assessing Short-Term Supply Disruption Impacts within Life Cycle Sustainability AssessmentA Case Study of Electric Vehicles

In this article,
the recently published SPOTTER approach, which
allows for identifying potential supply disruption impacts along the
entire supply chain within life cycle sustainability assessment in
the short term (i.e., < 5 years), is applied to a case study addressing
the cobalt and aluminum supply chains of electric vehicles (EVs) used
in Switzerland. Existing studies within the field assessing supply
disruption impacts for EVs and other technologies focus on impacts
related to raw material supply and thus neglect impacts along full
supply chains. The present study identifies hotspots and overall impacts
along the full supply chains by analyzing six supply disruption events
(i.e., geopolitical instability, child labor restrictions, trade barriers,
price volatility, limited recyclability, and economic resource depletion)
for two impact categories (i.e., cost variability and limited availability).
Identified hotspots suggest that supply chains are potentially disrupted
mainly through events occurring in Asian, African, or other developing
countries and affecting the Western economies. The highest risks are
indicated in relation to the supply of EVs, EV wiring, traction batteries,
cobalt powder, and cobalt ore. Suitable measures to mitigate these
supply risks are suggested showing that some of the suggestions could
not have been made based on the results of existing studies.