Goal and scope. The goal of this study is to compare stepwise cradle-to-gate environmental impacts (energy consumption, CO2-eq emission, and water consumption) for two supply chains: a conventional, linear supply chain fed by natural mined material for refinement into battery materials, and a circular supply chain fed by LIBs. Both supply chains produce battery-grade cathode materials. A cradle-to-gate analysis of the whole supply chain considers steps of material extraction, transport, and refinement, and gate-to-gate analysis investigates the refinement step, which is focused on in this study. A gate-to-gate scope is broadly defined as the boundary surrounding processing facility operations. In this analysis, gate-to-gate refinement only considers direct processing (e.g., alteration, concentration, precipitation) of the feedstock material once it is extracted from its original state and transported to the refinement location (shown in Fig. ). For Redwood Materials, this scope includes mechanical processing, reductive calcination, and hydrometallurgy (Fig. ). The system boundary does not include other operations outside of the direct refinement processes as discussed in study limitations below.