Standards: trade rules supporting the energy transition

Lithium-ion batteries are being used more and more in our everyday lives. What role do standards play in ensuring safe trade in these products?

On a typical morning, you might unplug your mobile phone from its overnight charger, wheel out your e-bike, or set off for work in an electric car that was charged while you slept. In the not-too-distant future, it's also possible that the building you live in will be powered by solar panels, with energy stored in a battery pack, to supply residents' needs.

The common element here is lithium-ion batteries, which are quietly becoming an essential element of modern life, marking a shift toward a greener future. They are central to electrifying transport and storing renewable energy, which could help to reduce use of fossil fuels. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global demand for batteries in the energy sector reached a historic milestone of 1 TWh in 2024 — in a year, this would be enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes.

Meeting this surging demand depends heavily on international trade. The global lithium-ion battery market exceeded US$ 150 billion in 2025. It has grown six-fold since 2020, with electric vehicles remaining the dominant driver of demand.

But how can we trust batteries we buy and import? How can we make sure they will perform as promised, that they are safe, and that they will not end up polluting the environment?

For this, governments use standards.

How do standards build trust in batteries and other technologies that support the energy transition?

Standards are documented product requirements, some of which are voluntary, while some — when used in regulations — are mandatory. Although they are invisible to consumers, they define how products are designed, manufactured, tested or labelled.

For a lithium-ion battery, standards cover a wide range of requirements. Safety rules set limits on how a battery should behave under demanding conditions.  For example, can it withstand extreme temperatures, physical shocks or electrical faults without catching fire. Performance standards define what a battery must be capable of: its energy density, charging speed or durability over hundreds of charge cycles. When batteries or other climate technologies meet such requirements, this enables companies to trade them across borders and allows consumers to purchase them with confidence.

Can standards make trade in batteries and other climate technologies more sustainable?

In addition to ensuring the safety and performance of batteries, standards can help governments to improve the sustainability of lithium-ion batteries by guiding the way they are produced, designed and managed throughout their lifecycle.

For example, labelling standards may require manufacturers to disclose the battery's composition, its carbon footprint, and how it should be handled at the end of its life. Design requirements can help to ensure that batteries are durable and easy to disassemble, making them easier to repair, reuse and recycle. Without such standards, the environmental promise of the transition to clean energy can easily come undone. A battery that degrades quickly must be replaced sooner, generating waste and requiring more raw materials — such as lithium, cobalt and nickel — to be extracted to create new batteries, with significant environmental consequences.  

But the energy transition goes beyond batteries. Standards are also used to pursue many other environmental objectives across various sectors. Between 2009 and 2024, WTO members submitted over 10,000 environment-related notifications to the WTO — around two-thirds of them related to standards. These notified standards covered a variety of products and pursued a wide variety of environmental objectives. For example, WTO members notified minimum energy performance standards for household appliances and emissions standards for vehicles.

So, standards are very useful, but is there a downside?

A battery manufacturer exporting to multiple markets may face a different set of standards in each market. These may include different safety tests, performance metrics or recycling obligations. If importers do not accept test results conducted in the manufacturing economy, batteries may have to be tested again on arrival, adding cost and delay, often with no safety benefit. These differing requirements can create uncertainty for the exporter, and may slow the global diffusion of cleaner technologies.

Standards work best when they are consistent, recognized across multiple economies and mutually accepted. When they are not, problems multiply — creating the downside.

What is the role of the WTO?

At the WTO, the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade provides a framework for governments to cooperate on regulatory matters, encouraging alignment with international standards and reducing unnecessary barriers to trade — including in green products.

The TBT Committee is a forum for governments to raise trade concerns. For example, in 2010 a WTO member proposed stricter safety rules for the air transport of lithium batteries following a series of incidents where batteries overheated, causing them to ignite. The proposed rules went beyond the existing international standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization, prompting objections from several WTO members, who warned of significant trade disruptions. Subsequently, through TBT Committee discussions, members worked toward a practical solution, bringing the measure closer to the international standard while taking into account the need for safety.

Members also use the TBT Committee to share experiences on a wide range of environment-related standards, including energy efficiency, plastic waste, climate change and decarbonization. These exchanges help WTO members to learn from each other and to find ways to meet their environmental objectives without creating unnecessary barriers to trade. In July 2026, the TBT

Committee will hold dedicated sessions on standards related to lithium-ion batteries, biofuels, clean energy and climate adaptation in buildings.

So, when you next return home and need to charge your phone, e-bike or electric car, remember the role of standards in the energy transition: the invisible rules that help ideas move from laboratories to markets, across borders and into daily life. When correctly applied, standards help make the energy transition safer, faster and more reliable.