Polestar’s sustainability boss on minerals mining and ‘animal welfare’ leather

It’s no secret that there’s no such thing as a perfectly clean vehicle, completely free of environmental impact.

Whether it’s the emissions made and oil used in the production and operation of a conventional combustion-engined car, or the rare earth minerals mined to build and coal burned to charge (most but not all) EVs, cars don’t come without some baggage.

Most detractors of electric vehicles – those not focused purely on driving range – will hone in on the proven harmful production processes and the (increasingly shrinking) number of EVs in Australia that are charged with energy drawn from coal-burning power plants.

It’s the sort of thing that, like politics and vaccinations, leads to heated debates on social media; fuelled by misquoted snippets from articles with varying efforts in substantiation, and links to study after study, both sides repeating “google it” and “do your research”.

Carmakers aren’t unaware of this debate, though, and most have been making moves for years to dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of their vehicles. It’s not an inexpensive process to revolutionise every facet of supply, production and transport, of course – and much of the process can’t yet be made completely emissions free – but most brands would argue they’re innovating at pace.

Speaking with media at this week’s global reveal of its new ‘3’ EV, Polestar’s head of sustainability Fredrika Klarén said the brand is going to lengths to ensure it is using the most ethically sourced minerals and materials it can, through new traceability and accountability programs.

Batteries on the blockchain... mostly

On the topic of minerals needed for batteries, Klarén says Polestar uses blockchain technology to trace the origin of cobalt and mica used in the production of batteries made by its supplier, China’s CATL – the world's largest producer of batteries for EVs.

In the case of the cobalt, human rights issues have surrounded mining from the world’s main source, the Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa. CATL claims it has taken steps to ensure human rights are respected in the mines it uses and owns a stake in. (source)

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“We know the minerals in our batteries come with risk, both in terms of environment and human rights,” Klarén said. “So for us it's become a focus on traceability.

"Polestar 2 was the first car on the market to use blockchain to trace cobalt. We know that if we can trace materials, we know that we can ensure the requirements we've set on our suppliers can be met. A lot of materials now have traceability schemes.

“When it comes to minerals – a very corrupt supply chain – there has not been robust traceability, but we've been able to use blockchain to create these schemes, and that has been an amazing journey for us. But of course, responsible sourcing, and really working with our suppliers to meet those requirements – our suppliers are working to reduce their emissions and move to more renewable energy.”

Less transparent is the treatment of lithium mine workers inside Chinese borders, with reports of forced labour in the country’s west difficult to verify – or disprove, given the ongoing human rights concerns regarding the treatment of Uyghurs in the region. More new mines are opening in western nations, however, and while human rights are less an issue, environmental impact remains a major concern.

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Lithium, and nickel, are not yet included in blockchain traceability systems, but Kerstin Enochsson – head of procurement for Volvo, both parent of and partner to Polestar under the Geely banner – said in 2019 that the company is "working on getting lithium and nickel in the blockchain as well".

Scientists are also working to establish a program for tracing the origin of lithium in batteries by its atomic signature, an even more accurate and trustworthy method than blockchain – which is effectively a more advanced paper trail.

Mining companies, too, are aware of the increasing need for transparency and traceability to satisfy a growing expectation of sustainability. In Australia, mining company Mincor has acknowledged the need – and the financial advantage – for meeting these goals.

"With this fundamental shift in the market, if you can produce clean, green nickel, because it will be traced right through to the vehicle, you've probably got a pretty good future ahead of you," former Mincor boss David Southam told the ABC in August 2022.

One new mine opening in Canada, Snow Lake Lithium, has declared it will extract lithium in a “no harm” project, supplying enough lithium to North American manufacturing for around 500,000 EVs to be built each year for the next 10 years. Polestar has confirmed it will build a number of its Polestar 3 EVs at Volvo’s plant in the US (for markets outside of China, although it is "undecided" if that could include Australia), and strong new legislation around Chinese imports to the US could see the company using lithium sourced from a company like Snow Lake.

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Recycling and remanufacturing

End-of-life is another area of focus for the brand, particularly the recycling and repurposing of its batteries and vehicle components, Klarén said.

“We have partnerships for battery recycling – they can repair broken batteries (for refurbishment), building remanufacturing capability in those partner centres.

“However, there are currently limitations in infrastructure for recycling. There is so much about cars that is recyclable, but there is so much still to be done. We're looking into new ways of working to promote a greater infrastructure here, but we can't talk too much on that yet,” Klarén said.

Asked whether Polestar itself should launch a recycling program of its own rather than relying on partners, CEO Thomas Ingenlath, also present for the Q&A session, added: “the business of recycling; no we don't need to get into that business, but we do need to engineer our cars to be more easily recyclable in a meaningful way.”

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Leather sourced with 'animal welfare' origins

Interior trim is another area where innovation is keeping pace with the wider materials market, with more and more brands looking to sustainable fabrics made from ocean plastics, bamboo, cork, coffee grounds, cactus leaves and more, along with that old favourite, wool.

For its standard trim, Polestar uses “bio-attributed MicroTech”, a synthetic ‘vegan leather’ made largely from recycled polyester with none of the PVC or polyurethane historically used to make vinyl). But while some brands offer no genuine leather option in their EVs at all – seeing the material as one incongruous with the goal of EVs – Polestar will continue to make real leather available. With a twist.

For the 3, and already for the 2, Polestar offers the option of what it calls ‘animal welfare leather’, sourced from UK company Bridge of Weir, which works exclusively with leather taken as a byproduct of the food industry – and only from livestock treated ethically from birth to slaughterhouse.

“We were really happy to be able to work with Bridge of Weir around the leather in Polestar 3, which is an amazing company in terms of sustainability ambition,” Klarén said.

“They have full traceability, down to the farm, and also they only have animals coming from the food industry – which means this is a byproduct to the food industry.”

This specially sourced leather won’t come cheap, however. In Australia, leather in the Polestar 3 will be priced from around $8000 (already available for $6000 in the 2), whereas leather usually adds around $3000-5000 to a purchase (depending on the grade and brand).

If neither option appeals, the Polestar 3 will also be offered with 100 per-cent traced wool upholstery.

All Polestar 3s will also feature a block of text on the backrest of each front seat, proudly declaring the carbon footprint of the material chosen.

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Klarén says that in the push to make vehicle manufacturing a sustainability-focused industry, Polestar wants to collaborate with other brands on innovation and setting standards – but, she adds, it can be difficult to break down barriers.

“This is bigger than Polestar, what we're trying to achieve. We see that many other brands are doing amazing things. We know that there's a lot of sustainability work ongoing within all car companies now. But we are in a very traditional system, so it's very hard for us to talk to each other and collaborate – for very good reasons, it's been heavily regulated in the car industry,” Klarén said.

“But now in this new era, we need to do like other industries – the fashion industry, and others, to really team up to combat the immense challenges we face, in the supply chain for example. So, that is a bit annoying, that we are stuck in this system, but we are trying to figure out how to get out of that.

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“Our Polestar 0 project is a good example of that, where we have been very outspoken about this top-down target we have set for ourselves. We don't yet know how to reach it, but we're inviting others to participate in this project. We've launched our third call to action a couple of weeks ago, and we're seeing amazing interest from industry players and other OEMs, startups and so on. So, yeah, I have hopes that we will solve that as well.”

The Polestar 3 will go on sale in Australia in the first quarter of 2024, taking on the Audi E-Tron, the BMW iX, and the upcoming Mercedes-Benz EQE SUV. Get our full reveal story at the link below.