Perhaps a customer of your company has already inquired about the climate impacts of your products, or maybe you simply know that your product is more climate-friendly than other products on the market. But how do you discover your product's actual climate impacts? Naturally, by calculating its carbon footprint.

I wrote a blog a few months ago about carbon footprint calculations at a general level, but the focus of this article is specifically on the product’s carbon footprint. This article particularly focuses on the factors that differentiate product carbon footprint calculations from company-specific calculations. These include, for example, the functional unit, Product Category Rules, and partial carbon footprint calculations from raw material extraction to the company’s gate (cradle-to-gate).

Measuring carbon footprint based on up-to-date standards

If a company wants to conduct the carbon footprint calculation of its own products effectively, the calculation follows the guidance of carbon footprint calculation standards. We use the ISO 14067:2018 standard in our product-specific calculators and calculations. We also consider the European Commission’s recommendations regarding Product Environmental Footprint (PEF).

When calculations are conducted in accordance with up-to-date standards and recommendations, it ensures that all stages from defining the goal to reporting results and documenting uncertainties are considered. Standards and guidelines also help understand the accuracy requirements of the calculation and what kind of data should be used in the calculation.

The functional unit is the starting point for product carbon footprint calculations

Once the goal of the product carbon footprint calculation is defined, a functional unit is selected to which greenhouse gas emissions are calculated.

Often, the functional unit is, for example, “one product” or “one kilogram of product”. In cases where different products are to be compared, the definition of the functional unit starts with the product’s intended use and the benefit it provides to the user. For example, when comparing a high-quality, durable T-shirt to a few euros T-shirt that falls apart after the first wash, the functional unit could be the T-shirt’s number of uses and washes over a year. In this case, it must be considered that low-quality T-shirts need to be purchased several times throughout the year to achieve the same level of usage as the high-quality T-shirt.

Product Category Rules provide additional guidance for carbon footprint calculations

Product Category Rules (PCRs) are product category-specific guidelines on how to calculate the environmental impacts, including the carbon footprint, of certain types of products. PCRs address issues such as the recommended functional unit for each product category and how the scope is defined.

When defining the scope, considerations are made regarding which life cycle stages are included in the product's carbon footprint.

Cradle-to-grave or cradle-to-gate?

Primarily, the carbon footprint includes all life cycle stages from cradle to grave, meaning from raw material extraction to the product’s end-of-life.

If the product is intended for consumer use, the calculation must include all life cycle stages, including the use and disposal. However, a partial carbon footprint can be determined if a company provides its products to another business (B2B). In the partial carbon footprint, the climate impacts are calculated only up to the point where the finished product leaves the factory for the market (cradle-to-gate).

Tools to calculate carbon footprint

The services of the OpenCO2.net platform include a standard-based product carbon footprint calculator (ISO 14067). We also offer our customers company-specific carbon footprint calculators built on top of the OpenCO2.net platform, which consider the company’s unique supply chain. These calculators provide a cost-effective alternative for emissions calculation for a wide range of products. Examples of these calculators include those we have developed for Delipap, Messeforum, and PaaPii Design. We also offer carbon footprint calculation training.