As Tesla Inc. approaches its annual shareholder meeting Sept. 22, known as "Battery Day," analysts expect CEO Elon Musk and other executives to focus their attention on heavily anticipated new battery compositions that could slash electric vehicle price tags and increase the range of their cars. At the same time, the company is expected to use the event to provide an image as a cleaner, humane vehicle manufacturer while advocacy pressure mounts over environmental and social issues in its supply chain.

Tesla may use the event to elaborate on plans to reduce the amount of cobalt in its lithium-ion batteries, Goldman Sachs Equity Research analysts said in a Sept. 3 note. Expanding battery cell capacity and cutting costs are expected to be key topics of discussion, and Tesla has already targeted eliminating cobalt in its battery packs as a way to lower the prices of its EVs.

The company had said its plans to fully remove cobalt from its supply chain are motivated not only by cost concerns but by ESG concerns. The metal is predominantly produced in Democratic Republic of Congo, and production in the region has been damaged by allegations of environmental hazards and poor labor conditions.

Analysts expect Tesla to discuss its sustainability and human rights priorities at the event due to the increasing pressure for automotive manufacturers to incorporate those concerns into their supply chains, BNEF analyst Logan Goldie-Scot said in a Sept. 15 interview. The company may build on its recent move to join the Fair Cobalt Alliance, an industry-backed responsible mining effort that includes Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co. Ltd. and Glencore PLC, and Tesla could also release new information on reducing its carbon footprint.

"It is sort of two pronged, where you've got the carbon intensity of manufacturing and the ethical concerns around mining in particular. We expect an announcement on both those fronts," Goldie-Scot said. "That covers sustainable mining practices over the near-term because, for cobalt, that matters."

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However, plans to remove cobalt are unlikely to assuage the concerns of Tesla's detractors in the human rights community who believe that the company is failing to lead by example when it comes to accounting for risks in its supply chain.

Tesla's board opposed a shareholder proposal scheduled for a vote on Battery Day compelling the company to prepare a report on its human rights due diligence and argued that the company already has a sound process for remedying potential human rights conflicts.

Gina Falada, senior program associate at Investor Advocates for Social Justice, an organization supporting the proposal, told S&P Global Market Intelligence the auto manufacturer is failing to adequately assess issues that are less "salient" than cobalt, and plans to remove the metal from Tesla's batteries would in no way reduce the need for the report.

This is because as the company moves away from cobalt, it is likely to become increasingly reliant on other minerals such as nickel or manganese. And those commodities are hardly cleaner alternatives.

"Even if they reduced cobalt and increased nickel or other minerals, there are likely other human rights risks present [in the supply chain]," Falada said.

"A company can do something to maximize best practices and minimize concerns around cobalt, but there are other different practices that need to be put around nickel and manganese and lithium," Goldie-Scot said, nodding to ESG risks present in the battery supply chain writ large. "This is not a single practice. This is not a single metal. It's basically across the entire supply chain."

Nickel has already proven to be a new sustainability struggle for the EV giant. Over the summer, Musk offered a "giant" long-term contract to nickel miners that could supply battery-grade nickel produced in an "environmentally sensitive" way. In response, an association of Indigenous peoples in Russia publicly urged Tesla to boycott nickel from PJSC Norilsk Nickel Co., the major producer responsible for a series of oil spills in the Arctic that attracted worldwide scrutiny. In September, Reuters reported that Tesla was in talks with GIGA Metals Corp. to develop a low-carbon nickel mine.

"There is greater consumer awareness around these human rights issues than there probably has been in any point in history," Goldie-Scot said, adding that these issues are becoming an increasingly relevant consideration for consumers, especially if part of their motivation for buying an electric vehicle is because they are trying to do "what's right."