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So to recap, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at MintMobile.com slash Switch. Welcome back to the MrBeacon podcast. Today we are continuing our deep dive into the area of digital product passports. DPPs are really a phenomenon that is making huge opportunities for IoT, for solution builders, for members of the public, for people that make things,
to add lots of value and innovate around business models and technology. And in the past, we've covered DPP from the perspective of GS1 standards to check those past episodes out, Dominic and I'd spend our mad on the inside, who's been involved in Fordsy-Wave standards. But this is going beyond that. We're going into the actual application of the new European
Union DPP legislation to specific categories of products. We're going to be talking with Lauren Roman, who is chair of the NATBAT Alliance for Advanced Transportation, batteries, track and trace committee. So she's a subject matter expert. She's also vice chair of the Society of Automotive Engineers, battery global traceability standards committee. So they're right at the sharp end of getting everyone to agree what, why and how to apply this.
So if you want to learn about what's coming, about the opportunities, what it means, then I hope you will stick with us for this interview. I really enjoyed it. Hopefully you will too. Mr Beacon Ambient IoT podcast is sponsored by Williot, bringing intelligence to every single thing. Lauren, thank you so much for coming on to the Mr Beacon podcast. Well, thank you so much for asking me, Steve. I appreciate it. You are a subject matter expert in the area of digital product passports, circularity,
recycling, electronics in particular. I really felt like you had a perspective that we could all learn from because there's this EU legislation that's passed, it's driving change, and it's all around digital product passports. That means not only people in the EU are going to have to start managing digital product passports, but anyone that makes products the sold in the EU will have to do it as well, which is pretty much everywhere.
Asia, United States, they use a pretty big market. So everyone's scrambling, I think, and trying to figure out what they have to do and when. And you seem to be at the center of one of these little tornadoes or big tornadoes because you're really connected into automotive and the batteries used for transportation. Maybe we should start off and just, can you give us like a quick summary of the roles that you have and why is it that you've become immersed
in this digital product passport business? Well, digital product passports allow not only manufacturers to have visibility on their products and the resources that go into those products so that at the end of that product life, they can have the ability to recover
those resources, but they also, it's very empowering for consumers. Consumers have been much more enlightened to a lot of the problems in supply chains and that child labor, human rights abuses, environmental abuses, so on and so forth and don't want to be a part of that. They don't want to support brands and products that are involved in that kind
of thing, especially the younger generations, which is fantastic. And the digital product passport is, it's basically, and this is the European version, but it's becoming pretty universally accepted that this is what it is. It's basically a QR code that can go on to a product that anybody with a cell phone can scan and that will bring you to a platform, a website, whatever, that will, that can give you evidence of all these things, of where
everything that went into your product came from, certifications that prove that it's true that that's where your product came from, and information on how to take care of it, how to recycle it, how to repair it, where to bring it, you know, all those things that give us a circular economy so that we're not just constantly throwing things away.
So I got into it because of the challenges in the electronics recycling industry, where so much material was being exported to third-world countries and the human rights abuses and the environmental harm was just astronomical. It still is in many cases. And so I got really interested in traceability technology and QR codes are just one. There's RFID, there's NFC, which is near field communication, there's all kinds of things, and that technology
is just getting better and better and better. But the EU picked a QR code because it's so accessible to almost everybody. Yes. So a lot to unpack there, but thank you. That's a really amazing intro. And really it's our sponsor, so I'm going to say one of the options alongside QR codes and RFID and NFC is ambient IoT and Bluetooth tags. But we wanted to focus on that in this conversation. What I want to focus on really is, you know,
what, why, how, where, the timing of all of this. But to summarize your excellent explanation, what we're fighting is that there's a product identifier which might be a QR code or one of those other things that's all a product, you'll be able to scan it and you'll essentially go to a web page that will have everything that you want to know as a consumer about the product where it's come from, how to dispose of it, how to repair it, and maybe even how to get some value back from it. Absolutely.
I assume, which will be a great win because I think that will encourage the manufacturing of products that are built to last, which will turn the tide on a horrible trend of built-in obsolescence and fast fashion and all these other things where basically all of the investment, if you get cheap, grotty, horrible stuff, it doesn't last, it doesn't make you feel good, and I think we all love those generational products that can be handed down or at a mercenary
level, has a, ever residual value so that you can get some money back from it. So that's kind of, we're all on the same page. The European Union legislation, my understanding is that it's now the law. Is that correct in the EU? Four batteries, yes. Okay, so there's a broad umbrella, which is kind of generic digital product passports, and then it's going into effect industry by industry and as you say, batteries are first, right?
I mean, our resources on this planet are limited, that's a fact. So we can't continue what we've been doing for so long, forever. So after batteries, next on the list very soon, is a parallel in textiles. That's a big deal for consumers to know that their clothing isn't coming from sweatshops and so on and so forth. So a parallel in textiles is up next, consumer electronics. Yeah. That's that little come after that. So that's really exciting
to me. And then various types of construction materials, so that will be huge. There's a lot of construction waste. And food is kind of last as I understand. It's not even being, it's definitely not at the front of the queue. And I, my understanding about that was actually they were smart. They said, we're going to get hit with all sorts of arguments about cost of implementation.
So I think it made sense to focus on batteries. I think it does. Why, why do you think batteries ended up being at the front of that line, being the ones that had to conform first? Because of climate change, we can't wait any more to take action on climate change. I think almost everybody knows that now. We're out of time on doing anything about it. And so focusing on a circular economy for critical battery minerals that can reduce our
energy use and our production of carbon emissions is, it's absolutely critical. It's critical to humanity. It's critical to the planet. And so I think that that was what really pushed it. And I think when they, in Europe, when they figured out this whole battery passport thing and how to track products and extend their life and so on and so forth, that it became very obvious that, why are we doing this for everything? You know, when it comes to food,
food traceability. So the difference between track and trace is, trace is tracing it up to its origin, back to its origin. And tracking is tracking the actual product through its life cycle. So consumers are, and even government officials and are very interested in where their food comes from or what went into what they're going to eat. So traceability is really important. But track and tracking is important for when you have, when somebody
gets sick, for example, but it's also biodegradable. Most of, I hope it's all biodegradable. I don't know. You look at some of the most potato chips in the last years. I have a question whether they're really on it. They was twinky, right? That last word forever. But yeah, and they've got 25 other products categories lined up. So yeah, okay. So, back to batteries and not just car batteries, is it? What kind of batteries are covered?
No, it's battery energy storage systems, also called best systems. But these are providing storage for wind energy and solar energy so that they don't have to rely on just the wind and just the sunshine to operate. And so the growth in renewable energy is huge. And so we need these batteries for the energy storage projects. The good news is when a battery is no longer have enough power to power a car to go a reasonable distance,
it can still have a lot of power left to be used as an energy storage battery. So there's a phenomenal opportunity of second life in energy storage batteries. The other batteries are they call them, I think light means of transit. So bicycles, scooters, all the electronic transportation, but you know vehicles that we have, they're also all included. So I forget how many kilograms it is, but it's a certain weight that everything above that weight that's
a lithium ion battery or rechargeable battery is covered by regulation. So my triple A battery is not covered by this, but the battery of my bike is this particular battery passport legislation. Okay. So the EU has done its thing, it's the law, when's it going to go into effect? All effect in 2027. Okay. I think it's February of 2027. So not long. But your parts of it are being implemented. So what does the industry have to do? Well, you're involved in a couple
of groups that are looking at this. Are there things that the legislation doesn't address that you're having to work on? That's a big question. The European battery regulation is the most comprehensive piece of legislation I've ever, environmental legislation and I've ever seen in my life. So there's so much there. And in the United States, we have the IRA, which provides the rebate for people that buy an electric vehicle battery. If the manufacturer can prove that the
critical minerals that go into the battery are from only from US trading partners. And they've loosened up that their definition of trading partners a little bit because it narrowed down the scope of eligible vehicles to almost, almost nothing. So they loosen that up for a few years to give the manufacturers an opportunity to catch up. And but that's $7,500 rebate. So it's significant. And so that's a huge incentive for the manufacturers to make sure that they know what their supply chain
looks like. So what is, let's take some of these groups that you're working with the society of automotive engineers, the Alliance for Advanced Transportation batteries, NAPBAT. What are you guys spending your time on with respect to this legislation? Well, for the SE work, we are looking at the, there's 107 data attributes that have been identified by the European Commission that need to be a part of that battery passport. They also dictate who,
what stakeholder groups must have access to that information. And so we're going through this list and then looking to see, you know, with, does that look like it should be a global standard for that data point or is there any reason why it shouldn't be? So we're going through all these 107 data attributes that it's just a starting point. We are absolutely just getting started. As far as NAPBAT goes, really we spend a lot of time doing education,
on trace track and trace. So for example, our last meeting, we had a representative of a large AutoID company that does RFID and all that company called Optel. And they came and basically did like a tutorial on AutoID. What is NFC? What is RFID? How do you make it work? I mean, not a deep dive, just as they touched on AMP and IoT. And to really, so to let people know that, the average person on the street doesn't know about that type of technology, even though it's all
around us. So from basics like that to, I think our next full meeting will be in September because we have a face-to-face meeting in August, which is part of a conference. And on that one, we're going to have companies that are members of NAPBAT, like Willie Ut. I don't know that Willie Ut is a member yet, but come in and do like a little demonstration of how their platform works, how their platform is going to help people trace their batteries. So we've been doing a lot of
education. We wrote a white paper, you know, just kind of on the lay of the land. So a lot of different things, I mean, I leave it open to the group. This is for you. What do you want out of this? What are the priorities? In fact, we did a survey in February for that exact purpose. And we got like the top three things. We said, okay, that's what we're doing this year. So there's not a lot of strict structure around what we do at NAPBAT as opposed to SAE, which is much more structured.
Okay, so one's kind of encompasses education and helping the industry move forward. And the other one is really getting into the bits and bytes and the details. Now, to what extent is this European standard really doing the thing that I claimed it would, which is to impact the way this business works globally, you know, inside and outside of the EU? Am I as a American consumer? I'm living
in San Diego now, even though I grew up in England. Am I going to be able to go and if I buy some more batteries for my power wall, which I've got outside my house or in the garage, I want more batteries. Am I going to be able to get the benefit of these digital product passports and find out whether this is the result of some really horrible production process or a good one?
That's a great question. I would say if the manufacturer is putting their batteries on the market in Europe and that's the manufacturer or another manufacturer, then you will see that QR code, you know, definitely by 2027. And have that be able to have access to that information. So there's a chance that it will spread beyond those borders, especially if the manufacturer
is putting the systems in place for their European business. Well, hopefully, I hope hopefully there'll be some movement to pressure so that they don't just kind of give the Europeans the information and they don't provide it to the Americans. And there's, you know, there are things happening in the US not as fast, but a bill was proposed in April, end of April, I think, to fund the DOE, the Department of Energy, to develop digital battery identifiers as
what they're calling them. They're not calling them passports for whenever reason, but they include data on the origin of the battery materials and information, on recycling and all the other things that I mentioned before. So, you know, a lot, well, a lot of what happens in the US is going to depend upon, of course, our elections. So we'll just have to wait and see. Right. So where are these batteries being made? You have these
meetings that you're helping to chair, you are chairing. Are these Japanese companies or who makes the batteries that we all take for granted? Well, the vast majority of batteries are made in China. And China is not a US training partner. And so if a US manufacturer is sourcing their batteries from China or other countries that we don't, that aren't our trading partners, then there, when you go to buy that car, you are not going to get a $7,500 rebate because we are trying to,
we are trying to up our domestic supply of critical battery minerals. The resources that go into batteries are not in the United States. Some of them are, I mean, like there's Lithium and Nickel and things like that. But cobalt, for example, the majority of that is in Africa. You know, the whole point of these laws and having traceability in the United States right now,
the government's incentive is to keep critical minerals in the United States. So the recycling industry has grown a lot in the United States over the past, you know, five years. It's a long process. The technology is not nailed down. The traditional technology is pyromedic metallurgical, which means you have to burn it to get the minerals out. And that's a big carbon footprint. So the newer technology is hydro metallurgical, which is water-based and
chemical-based and has a much smaller carbon footprint. But it's not as proven as the pyro. So these companies typically have to build a pilot plan, prove to their investors and everybody else that the technology is going to work, and then try to get to a commercial scale with additional funding. But the Department of Energy has put a tremendous, the Infrastructure Reinvestment Act. I'm sorry, the, there's two, two IRA acronyms and I always try to figure out which is which.
But let's just say the federal government is putting a tremendous amount of money in getting and creating a more robust domestic supply. A big part of that is recycling. So they give an huge grants to some of these companies that are to build out their technology so that we were going to be ready for all these batteries when they come. Yeah, that seems to be the most key that we can just continue to dig the minerals out of the ground.
No, it's not. We're going to try and recycle and hopefully before we do the recycling, reuse, which kind of means you're not having to break everything down. Exactly. These expensive processes. I have a secret. I wore the wrong foundation for years. Then I discovered Ilmakiage. Their AI-powered quiz makes it so easy to find a perfect match. Customized for your unique skin tone, undertone and coverage needs. With 600,000 five star reviews and 50 shades of flawless
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So still trying to get my head around how this is going to be implemented. So I think I get the fact that there's going to be a web page with a lot of really information, interesting information, 107 attributes maybe. How do we know that the information is correct? Evidence authentic. Okay. So for example, let's just say that you're a battery manufacturer and there's an organization that has boots on the ground that goes in and audits these minds,
let's say in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And they have a certificate that they will issue if that mind meets the certain level of standard. So somebody has that certificate and they can show the consumer that certificate. And the consumer can then, let's say like the Responsible Minerals Initiative, I think it's I think of the actual organization that does the boots on the ground is
called Irma and it's something responsible mining I.R.M.A. And so you as a consumer could say, I'm going to go on the Irma website and see if this mine is one of their certified minds. So there's so you know where to go to find out if it's real or if it's not. The other thing is as a manufacturer, you're you're putting evidence out there saying, this is what I'm doing. And I mean look what happened of Volkswagen with their emissions. You know, it doesn't work well for these
big corporations to lie about what they're doing because ultimately they get caught. And there will be the people that are going to look and see if that certificate is legitimate, including government authorities. So it's really you know with the way we can share information about things gives us an opportunity to understand things about products and where they come from and become responsible consumers like we've never had before ever. And will there be like audits of these systems
but will they you come in and selectively check? Yeah, I'm not sure which agency you know will audit it, but you always have to have audits you know to keep things right. I mean for example, you know, using the Volkswagen example, they wouldn't have gotten caught, but they did. Got it. Yeah. And then on the technology side, I'm assuming that this is technology neutral. So we we talked about all the different data carriers, the QR codes and so forth. And I'm assuming that
you don't have to use blockchain or any other particular technology. No, no. So the manufacturers can use whatever platform they want. They can use one that they've developed in house. They can contract with a traceability company to you know to do that work for them. But the thing the only technology that is absolutely required is the QR code. Okay. I'm not 100% sure. Yeah, it has
to have a QR code. Even if you're using like RFID or something else, it still has to have QR code because right now for RFID, you need readers and things like that and not everybody has those hardly anybody. Right. Yes. So that's the only thing that is you know set and stone that it's got to be a QR code. That's very sensible. So winding up here, what do you think the business opportunities are for companies that are interested in being part of this? And I mean, I can I look
at it and I always hope that there's a way of aligning the people planet profit thing. If you know when you ask people to do something to save the planet, but it's going to be terrible for profits, then you have to be skeptical as to whether anything's going to happen. But where if we can align things so that people can make money by doing good things, then I get a lot more optimistic.
So are there, you know, if you were a venture capitalist and you were in a position to play spits, what are the kinds of companies that you think can capitalize on this legislative driver and make money out of helping us move to this more transparent track and trace technology? Starting with your industry, Steve, I think there's a huge, I mean, the opportunities are
absolutely huge. And I think that, you know, the ubiquity of the QR code even now, people kind of understanding that there are other technologies out there that can help them do things better. So just by having that become such a normal part of everyday life, it kind of opens the door to all those other traceability technologies that are more sophisticated. And so that's why I think there's a huge opportunity in your industry. And of course, we met because
I discovered Ami and IoT. And I'm just said, wow. You know, one of the challenges of traceability technology is in certain cases the cost. And so, you know, the more we can reduce the cost and make it just more as available to more people, the more traction we're going to get. So I think for your industry, the opportunities are incredible. There's definitely opportunities in the recycling industry. There are opportunities in the repurposing industry, which is what they call when they
take the electric vehicle battery and repurpose it for energy storage. There's some concerns in that industry. And it's a little hard to get investment because with the price of a battery sometimes coming down, you wonder, well, why would somebody buy a used one when they could buy a new? So that's always a fear from investors. But from a critical minerals standpoint, that's the best choice for manufacturers to say, you know, we've got why don't we hold on to a bunch of our
batteries because we want to power our facilities. Or we want to build energy storage systems. They're all the all the big corporations globally are under requirements to reduce their carbon footprint. So if you can reuse a battery rather than make a new one, that's a huge, huge carbon footprint savings. So, you know, so that that that industry is a little harder, but also very, very interesting. And, you know, and then we've got, you know, what these battery, all the all the
fun stuff that they're powering, you know, the bikes and the scooters and everything. I mean, you know, 10 years ago, you never saw anybody on electric bike. It's five years ago. Yeah, you started seeing some people on electric bike. And now I belong to a bicycle club and it used to be all road bikes. And now a couple of my friends and I are the only glitters on road bikes. And everybody else is on e-bikes. I mean, I'm glad they're there because, you know, I may want
to switch to one someday, but hopefully it's not going to be for a long time. I have to say, I love the bike. I got one after I started talking to a climate scientist, Mike Berners-Lee. And he convinced me it was the most sustainable way of getting to work. And I switched. And so every day, I get half an hour of meditation going into work, half an hour coming back. I've lost like 40 pounds. Hopefully I'll, you know, live longer if I don't get flattened by someone in a big truck.
And you don't show up all stinky as sweaty? Yeah. Well, with Sadiago's, it's not too hot. And I go in pretty early early and we have showers if it comes to that. I grew up in England, so we only have a shower once a week whether we need it or not. Now I do actually have a shower every day, but anyway, thanks for Claire. E-bikes. E-bikes are the way to go. Huge amount of fun. And I just love the fact that you can, I'm still burning off like 400 calories a day, but I'm doing,
I'm just covering more ground, seeing more things. Yeah. Have the wind in my hair. It's just so fun. So fun. It's for you. Very good. Well, Lauren, I've really enjoyed this. It sounds like there really is an opportunity for people to build some businesses. And, you know, I think going beyond compliance is, you know, that's one of the catch phrases that I've found myself using a lot. Let's use compliance as a catalyst for levels of automation that transform the business and
create one of all experiences for consumers. And, and it's clear that if you can tell people where their products come from, there's a way of building value. And hopefully the people that, you know, sell the products and do a really great job of a wonderful user experience where they tell the story of where the product came from and make people feel good about it, they'll learn that they can charge more for those products rather than just doing the bare minimum.
So, it's just hesitating to ask you about your nemesis, the actress called Lauren Roman. Is that a problem? Do you find it problematic? Is someone... No, it's actually really funny. When my kids were little, whenever the mail would come, I would always, I used to say, do I have any fan mail? And then all of a sudden, I started actually getting fan mail. And I used to hang out these letters on the refrigerator and my kids' friends would come over and I'd tell them, yeah, I'm really
famous. I mean, look at all my fan mail. So, no, that was the only thing that ever happened from that. Most people don't even know. You're very good. So, so we've established that you're not really a famous actress, actor actress, but you're very active in the circular economy, in the tracking and tracing and reversal of just things. And how did you get to this place where you are now? What was your story? Well, let's see. I spent most of my career in electronics,
lifecycle management and electronics recycling. And for anybody that knows anything about that industry, you know, in the early days, when it was, it mostly started out that there were, you know, mostly guys that were repairing electronics and they just had these growing piles of scrap. And so they started having to get creative with what they did with it and they started taking it apart. And then these exporters started knocking on their door and saying, you know, I buy
that stuff. And it was great because they didn't, they didn't have anywhere to send it. And that's really how the whole industry started to grow. And then an organization actually based here in the Seattle area called the Basile Action Network, it did a documentary exposing, it's actually called exporting harm, the high tech-trashing of Asia. And I got very involved in that whole issue.
And actually worked with that nonprofit and another organization that developed best practice standards for electronics recyclers so that they could prove to their customers that they were doing it the right way and the sustainable way and, you know, not harming people and the environment and so forth. And the standards were good, but they were dependent upon a once a year audit. And you knew when they were coming and so everybody would stand at attention and clean up all the
paperwork. And then many times when the auditors left, they would go back to doing business as usual. And that was extremely frustrating for me after all the years of work that I put into that. So I started getting and doing a lot of research on auto-ID, so RFID mainly and those type of tracking technologies. And that ultimately led me to to trip over blockchain technology,
which is a wonderful way for people to share data about all kinds of things. And I wound up, I had also done a project for a client that was looking for outlets for electric vehicle batteries. They had a big scrap processing operation and they processed scrap for smaller operations. And these smaller scrappy recyclers were coming to them and saying, well, you know, we're getting electric vehicle batteries. What can you take these? What do we do with these things? So they hired
me to do a project for them to research what to do with electric vehicle batteries. And this was like seven years ago. Anyway, I met this blockchain company and they said, oh, you have a background electronics. Do you know anything about electric vehicle batteries? And I was like, well, yeah, some. And so they hired me to build their battery traceability business. And that was a lot of fun. They had started outtracking. And this is Evelegia, right? Yes. And they started outtracking
batteries from the mine. I'm sorry, diamonds from the mine to prevent blood diamonds from hitting the market. So got involved with a lot of anti-counterfeit and things like that. But we're very involved with the development of the global battery alliance. So I joined them for five years. And then I went back to my consulting business, which is what I've been doing for the past year, almost year and a half. I started that in 2012. And actually, that's how I started working with Evelegia.
So a lot has happened. And now I'm I chair the Society of Automotive Engineers. Actually, I'm the vice chair for their battery global traceability standard. Because let's face it, cars and batteries move all over the planet. And so if we don't have standards that are global, then this traceability isn't going to work very well. So we're working on trying to get some global standards that will work. And another organization I work with closely is the advanced
automotive battery alliance, which is not called NATBAT. And I chair their track and trace committee as well. So that's the backstory. That's how I got to where I am. So you spend a lot of your time trying to wrangle opinionated engineers to get them to agree on things. Is that who's on these committees? Yeah, important things like, is it should or shall do this or that? You know, is it a period, a comma or a semicolon? That sounds tough. And it kind of sounds like a bit of a grind.
What are the things that you enjoy about it? Well, not much. But it's important. It's really important. And that's why I do it because, you know, if you, if you, if you have a passion of wanting things to come out a certain way, you have to be involved. So that's why I do it. And but it is, you're, you're, you're absolutely right. He's a grind. It's a lot of work. And it can
be extremely frustrating. But hey, somebody's got to do it. Yeah. And I find myself more involved in that sort of thing, not to the same extent that you are, but I've spent some time on standard bodies and so forth. What's the secret to getting things done? How do you, I mean, there's some people that just live it. And they, and they seem to love it. They spend their whole life in a standard's body. And they actually change employers more often than they change
standards bodies. That's kind of their thing. So there's obviously some skills to pull that off just as a way of earning a living. But what's the secret to actually getting agreement on a standard's body? That's a really good question. I think, I think it's just really like negotiating anything that you have to remain open to other people's views and opinions and what's important
to them. And, you know, be able to talk to them in a way where you can reflect back what they're saying and try to get to the bottom of what their concerns are. And I think that's what ultimately works. And when you have somebody who's hugely stubborn, when you're working in a group, usually there's somebody in that group that will have the magic sauce to get that person to sit back, maybe open up their thinking a little bit. So it's not,
it's not just, you know, what I do, but it's really what the group dynamic does. And it can work really well sometimes. It can be really painful sometimes. Most of all, it's both. It does both. How do the participants, because frequently they're representing a company with some interest, that they're having to defend? Do you, how do you see the successful people managing that
relationship? Because you're, it's a bit like a, like a peace negotiation. You kind of get in the room and you're arguing your point, but then you've got to convince all the people back home that what you've just agreed to is the right thing. And is there, how do people do that? Well, I think that as far as the, the electric vehicle battery and energy storage battery business goes, they're, right now there's so much, hey, T-Support energy, but there's so much
energy and excitement and interest. And there's also most importantly, regulations coming into play that I'll give you an example. About six years ago, I would, when I started the Track and Trace Committee with NADBAT, there was a gentleman from a major OEM in the US. And he was just scared to death of traceability. This is my business, not yours. And it just caused so much upset at our
meetings. It was, it was insane. He had a sense, retired. However, fast forward six years, I was on, and with SAE Society of Audemonde of Engineers, battery traceability, meaning a couple weeks ago. And the battery lifecycle manager from that same company, who I don't even think they had a battery lifecycle manager back then, from that same company was in the meeting. And one of the people in the meeting said, I don't think we should track everything about the battery. I think we should
just track, we just focus on the cell. Let's just focus on the cell. And she piped up and said the woman who's with the OEM, same OEM, same OEM. And she said, well, we have to comply with everything that they're requiring in Europe. So it doesn't make any difference to us. We think we should just track as everything that should be, that needs to be tracked. And, and that is what
happened in a six year period. And that just blew my mind. So the, the OEM community has, as you know, just really come to the realization that not only is it a regulation in Europe and regulations evolving in the United States, but it's also a great business opportunity. Because when you know where your assets are and your battery critical minerals are and you know what their condition is in and you know where they're going and how they're being managed, you can better
manage those. And then they can ensure themselves a much longer supply of those battery critical minerals. So, but in summary, legislation really helps. Take time. Well, very good. So where at that point in the interview where I get to ask you about your music choices and were you able to come up with three songs that had some meaning to you and memories? Yes. It was hard narrowing it down to three, but do you have a, do you, do you spend all of the time listening to music or play, do you
play music? I do. I listen to music a lot. And I'm also one of those people that has a constant earworm. There's always a song playing, always a song playing, which can be annoying, especially if I don't know all the words. So do you find that what's your strategy for getting rid of the earworm? Do you just like embrace it and say, I'm going to like start singing this out loud? Sometimes I have to work at changing the channel because it's really bugging me. And sometimes
it just, it just goes away. If I'm getting a perfect example, I do a lot of hiking. And there's always an airworm when I start. And I'm like, oh, I just want to be out here in nature and enjoy this and get rid of this song. But I get to a point where it clicks off and it just, and then I'm just, sometimes I'll put a little tune in my head that's nobody's tune. It's my tune. And I just walk and listen to my tune. And that usually happens when I get to a certain level of tiredness. And then
I just kind of get into it. So my, the three songs that come back a lot, a lot, I should say, or have meaning. One of them is, gotta be 20 years, no, like 30 years old, maybe. It's a song called More Than Words. And it's a, by a band called Extreme. They didn't go, they were really, really heavy, heavy rock band. And they, they, they, they came out with acoustic guitars and recorded this one song. And it's absolutely beautiful. And I love it. And it's about more than words. You need to
give me more than words to tell me that you love me, to show me. And it's really beautiful song. And another one is, have I told you lately that I love you? And that's Rod Stewart. And I love that song. My, my husband and I, that's our song. So I love that song. And another one is Big Yellow Taxi by Johnny Mitchell. And that was really the first environmental anthem that came out what during those 70s, I guess. And, and that is a cool song. And then of course, it was,
it's been re-recorded by a number of different artists since then. But so Big Yellow Taxi for anybody who doesn't know is the song about, they, they pay in paradise and they put up a parking lot. Oh, yes, yes, yeah, that's such a classic. I love our music. But I've had some terrible things about what she's trying to work with. Like she's just apparently an eye mayor. But that could just be people who wanted to, her to do what they wanted to do and they didn't get on.
Right. Right. And Rod Stewart is like this Zellig character. You know, one of these people that just pops up in so many stories, I'm addicted to listening to the autobiographies of rock musicians. I'm listening to Eric Clapton's autobiography, which is fascinating. Oh, wow. Had a really troubled childhood and, and it ends up meeting everyone, you know, Jimmy Hendrix, BB King. It's amazing. And of course, Rod Stewart. And Rod Stewart is like almost every single
five people. I know. I read, I listen to, he's in it. So he's, he's got around. So very good. Well, that great songs. Thank you very much for sharing. And thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Lauren. Thank you so much. It was my pleasure. So that was Lauren. I am always amazed that people are really involved in these deep technical subjects have another side to their lives. The, the artistic side. And, you know, of course, everyone does. Everyone's a person, but I really enjoyed Lauren's
music choices. And I'm looking forward to our next episode. There'll be another guest. Please do join us. Please do tell folks who you think could learn a bit from joining us on what is always an educational discussion for me. We appreciate your loyalty. We appreciate your time. See you next episode. Bye. Bye. I have a secret. I wore the wrong foundation for years. Then I discovered Ilmakiage. Their AI powered quiz makes it so easy to find a perfect match. Customized for your unique skin tone,
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