--- --- Oct 30, 2025 # Douglas Johnson-Poensgen President and Founder, Circulor\* by [Micheline Maynard](https://time.com/author/micheline-maynard/) ## Micheline Maynard  Photo-Illustration by TIME (Courtesy Photo) Starting in January, a new rule imposed by the European Union will require every electric vehicle and industrial battery sold in the European market to [carry a digital passport](https://www.circularise.com/blogs/battery-regulation-eu-what-you-need-to-know-about-battery-passports), designed to track and regulate environmentally hazardous materials in batteries. It’s a QR code attached to a battery that states proof of origin, performance, and component sourcing for batteries, making that information readily available to consumers, retailers, and manufacturers. And beginning last year, the Volvo XC90[ became the first vehicle](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volvo-issue-worlds-first-ev-battery-passport-ahead-eu-rules-2024-06-04/) to carry the passport. Now, an estimated 2 million battery passports—each costing $8 to $10 to produce—are in use, according to Douglas Johnson-Poensgen, the president and founder of Circulor, the London-based software developer that provides the QR passports to Volvo and works with companies including Boeing and Salesforce. (Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is also a co-owner and co-chair of TIME.) And so far,[ Circulor has collected](https://circulor.com/about-us) 2.8 billion scans for information. Johnson-Poensgen and his team began working on the concept of a battery passport in 2017\. The group was inspired by AI, which was yielding more data than engineers could tap on paper or by computer calculations. “I thought, there must be some value to this for the supply chain,” Johnson-Poensgen says. How could it be used “to try and make batteries more sustainably and responsibly?” Coincidentally, Volvo was striving to reduce its carbon footprint, track carbon emissions, and lessen the company’s impact on the environment. The battery passport concept fit that effort. The achievement is “humbling,” says Johnson-Poensgen, a father of two. “I have young children growing up into a world with climate change. We have finite resources on this earth. In a tiny way, it feels like I can make a bit of difference.” Johnson-Poensgen answered TIME’s survey on the state of the climate movement: **What is the single most important action you think the public, or a specific company or government, needs to take in the next year to advance the climate agenda?** The single most important action is to accelerate the move to electric vehicles and make them genuinely sustainable. Governments have a critical role to play in this: continuing subsidies for EV adoption, but equally investing in the infrastructure and regulatory frameworks that make cleaner supply chains possible. It isn’t enough to just swap the combustion engine for a battery, the way batteries are sourced, manufactured, and recycled matters enormously. That’s why the introduction of the world’s first battery passport, with Volvo’s EX90 in 2023, was such an important milestone: it showed that transparency and accountability in battery production can be done, and it must become the norm. **What is a climate solution that isn’t getting the attention or funding it deserves?** One overlooked solution is the role of sustainable tires, such as ENSO’s, that reduce harmful particulate emissions. Most people assume EVs eliminate pollution, but in fact tire and brake dust are increasingly a significant source of air pollution, particularly in urban environments. Innovation in tire design can reduce these emissions dramatically while also extending vehicle efficiency. It may not be as high-profile as renewable power or electrification, but solving these ‘hidden’ sources of pollution is essential to making the whole EV ecosystem genuinely sustainable. We need greater attention and investment here, because often the small, unglamorous changes have the biggest impact on people’s daily lives **If you could stand up and talk to world leaders at the next COP, what would you say?** I would urge world leaders to make meaningful, coordinated efforts to decarbonize global battery supply chains. Today, the emissions generated in turning rocks into batteries are shockingly high. Unless we address this, we risk solving one climate problem while creating another. The answer lies in transparency and accountability across the value chain, enforced through standards and embraced by industry. Shine a light on these complex and highly polluting supply chains. _\*Disclosure: Investors in Circulor include Salesforce, where_ TIME _co-chair and owner Marc Benioff is CEO._ Douglas Johnson-Poensgen: The 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders of 2025 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326557/douglas-johnson-poensgen/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326557/douglas-johnson-poensgen/"},"headline":"Douglas Johnson-Poensgen","datePublished":"2025-10-30T11:30:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-31T05:18:03.754Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326557/douglas-johnson-poensgen/","keywords":["TIME100 Climate 2025","list","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0ce84cdd46bead42/6998cafce1ba0040dd98e0c5/Innovators-Douglas-Johnson-Poensgen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Micheline Maynard","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/micheline-maynard/"}],"creator":"Micheline Maynard","articleSection":"Climate","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0ce84cdd46bead42/6998cafce1ba0040dd98e0c5/Innovators-Douglas-Johnson-Poensgen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/climate/","name":"Climate"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time100-climate-2025/","name":"TIME100 Climate 2025"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326557/douglas-johnson-poensgen/","name":"Douglas Johnson-Poensgen"}}]}] ```