Collecting carbon emission data for every stage of your product lifecycle

Building on the foundational content from our blog, Unpacking Product Carbon Footprints (PCF), this article delves deeper into the specifics of data collection across a product's lifecycle stages.

‍

Products have complex life cycles, starting as raw materials, moving through transportation and consumer use, and ending in disposal or recycling. Due to these complexities, tracking accurate data at every stage is challenging, but it's crucial for understanding the full environmental impact of your products.

Accurate assumptions and calculation methodologies at each life cycle stage ensure you get the most accurate insights into your product’s performance, essential for calculating a precise Product Carbon Footprint (PCF). This blog is designed to help you navigate the complexities of gathering and analyzing data at each lifecycle stage. We'll explore the best practices for making precise assumptions and applying effective calculation methodologies to ensure you receive the most accurate insights into your product’s performance. 

‍

A full life cycle boundary starts from raw materials acquisition and ends with the disposal of the product at the end of its life.

‍

PCF scope and granularity

‍

Product footprints are more focused than organizational footprints, which is why their data requirements are often more specific. If your customers are requesting you to follow a certain standard or if your sector or national regulatory demands set data quality standards, it is important to follow them.

We always recommend using activity data at least for the cradle-to-gate boundary, such as the actual weights of materials, transport distances, and energy consumption, over data points like spend that are often used to estimate organizational emissions. 

For downstream activities, a good way to collect data is often to make assumptions based on your product and your industry practices. You could for example review any product instructions on the recommended use of the product that you share with consumers. This can give you a basis for assumptions on how customers use or dispose of your product. Another way is to look for industry benchmarks to establish assumptions for the activities.

‍

Calculating emissions associated with product raw materials acquisition

‍

The first step of the life cycle, "Raw material acquisition", quantifies the emissions from the acquisition of raw materials needed to manufacture the product. This life cycle step consists of two emissions categories:

• Production goods and materials: Measures the impacts from the extraction, production, or pre-treatment of raw materials.
  
  
• Purchased logistics Measures the impacts of transporting raw materials from the supplier to your production facility.

The data inputs should cover the entire product composition, often called the product’s bill of materials.

For the highest accuracy, we recommend you always use the weights and quantities of raw materials as inputs. These provide much more accurate information than e.g. spend data. However, if you have received reliable CO2e data for the raw materials from your suppliers, this supplier-specific data is naturally the most accurate alternative to use.

When accounting for raw materials, it is important to take into account any waste products or product scraps generated during the production processes, as you might need to account for a higher quantity than what is stated in your bill of materials. It is important to quantify the amount of waste products generated as exactly as possible by measuring the process inputs and outputs. However, you can also create assumptions, such as assuming 5% of raw materials end up as waste, and increase the required raw materials quantities accordingly. 

💡 Emissions from purchased logistics include emissions from transporting the required quantity of product to the production location. This can happen through different transport methods, such as by road, rail or maritime transport. The easiest way to account the emissions is to input data in mass-distance units, such as tonne-km, for the relevant transport method.

‍

Calculating emissions associated with production activities

‍

The next life cycle step, "Production", begins when all the raw materials have arrived at your production facility, and the actual product is manufactured. This life cycle step quantifies the emissions from production activities, such as:

• Production-related energy consumption: The energy used during manufacturing processes.
• Production-related water consumption: Water used in the manufacturing process.
• Waste generated during production: Including any product scraps that go to waste.
• Fugitive emissions: Emissions from refrigerant gas leaks or other unintended GHG releases.
• Use of company-owned vehicles: Such as forklifts used within the production facility.

Emissions associated with production activities can result from the use of energy, raw materials, and other resources required to produce goods and services. They are often a significant contributor to a company's overall carbon footprint.

‍

It is important that your selections cover all the activities required before the product leaves the factory gate. Once again, make sure these inputs refer to the energy demand of the product measurement unit.

For example, how much electricity does it take to produce 1 kg of the product? The easiest way to collect this data is via direct metering of energy demand per production line. Often, your manufacturing and engineering departments are a valuable resource for obtaining this data. 

However, this is not always possible. In these cases, you can make estimations based on the total facility electricity consumption, and total production. We recommend categorizing products based on their production processes and estimating the energy demand (e.g. based on machine run times). If separating products is impossible, you can also use allocation methods, such as physical or economic allocation to obtain data on the product level. It is important to remember that such allocation should always be avoided whenever possible, as it can result in inaccurate results. 

For example, a food manufacturer might measure the electricity consumption of their processing equipment and find that updating to more energy-efficient machines could significantly reduce emissions.

Calculating emissions associated with product packaging 

‍

Similarly to the first life cycle step “Raw materials acquisition”, the "Product Packaging" life cycle step covers all the inputs of packaging materials that are used for packaging the final product when it leaves the production facility.

Packaging is commonly considered an optional input in PCFs, and the end goal of the PCF determines whether its impacts should be included. For a thorough footprint, it is naturally important to also include packaging, especially if your goal is to monitor and reduce material use. However, sometimes, packaging might vary greatly depending on the receiving customer, purchase quantity, or transport mode. 

For example, a beverage company might want to include packaging as part of its PCF to inform its decision-making regarding a switch from single-use plastic bottles to recyclable aluminum cans to reduce its product’s carbon footprint.

‍

Calculating emissions associated with product distribution and storage

‍

The "Product distribution and storage" life cycle step covers all the transportation and distribution activities the final product goes through during its life. This step should include all activities such as:

• Direct transportation to consumers
• Transportation to retail locations or distribution centers
• Storage in retail locations or distribution centers: Covering the energy and water consumption required to store the product.
• Travel of customers to retail locations: Or directly to the production facility to pick up the product.

Distances for downstream transportation activities or warehousing can be difficult to obtain, as these fall outside the company’s sphere of influence. 

You can build assumptions to fill data gaps based on your sales regions and the typical mode of sales and use them to estimate the distances the product travels. A great standardized resource is to follow the guidelines set by the European Commission in the Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules Guidance document. The document details multiple scenarios and assumptions that should be made for each transport step if primary data is unavailable.

💡In the Cozero PCF module, standard assumptions for transport distances for some product types are provided when activity data is missing. 

‍

Calculating emissions associated with product usage

‍

The next life cycle step, "Product usage", begins with the product arriving at the end consumer and covers the total energy use of the product from customer use until it is discarded. 

Typically, this step includes direct and indirect energy consumption. Direct energy is required by the product to function, such as a car requiring fuel or a lamp requiring electricity. Indirect energy consumption refers to energy-consuming activities that the product needs but where the product itself does not consume energy. This could include activities such as washing clothes or using a vehicle engine in a car.

For example, a car manufacturing company wanting to account for the emissions of its new car model could build an assumption that the studied car is estimated to remain in use for 15 years and driven on average 15,000 kilometers per year. They could then calculate the amount of fuel consumed throughout the 15 years and use this to calculate the product’s emissions from its usage. 

‍

Calculating emissions associated with product end-of-life 

‍

The product’s final life cycle step, "End of life", starts when the product is discarded by the consumer. This life cycle step covers the impacts of the waste disposal of the product’s materials.

The impacts greatly depend on the type of treatment the materials undergo: recycling significantly reduces the impacts, while landfilling is often the worst option. If you are unsure how your product is disposed of, we recommend researching the average waste treatment methods of relevant materials in your sales regions and using these to inform your assumptions.

For example, a furniture manufacturer might develop a take-back program to ensure their products are recycled or disposed of responsibly, reducing the carbon footprint associated with the end-of-life stage.

‍

How can I collect data for downstream activities?

‍

Data collection for downstream activities can be difficult and often requires either engagement with customers and their service providers or making assumptions on average situations within a given geography. In Cozero, you can also receive standard assumptions for certain product groups based on researched averages. 

Customer engagement is a great way to not only receive data, but also to increase your customers’ awareness of climate impacts and communicate your own sustainability efforts to them. Data collection could cover for example average transportation distances, warehousing energy consumption, or typical use habits of customers. This data could be collected e.g. by sending surveys to end consumers or business customers or directly contacting the most important customer companies.

Environmental Product Declarations published by other companies for similar products are a great outside resource for building assumptions. These declarations are reports of products’ total environmental performance. They typically list the assumptions made to account for the impacts of different life cycle steps such as transportation, usage, and end-of-life treatments. As they are standardized and product-type specific, they can be a great resource for building assumptions. 

Another good source of information is Product Category Rules, which are often used as a set of requirements and calculation guidelines for specific products when creating Environmental Product Declarations. They typically list standardized assumptions that should be used for the analysis of primary data that is unavailable and can, therefore, give great standardized guidelines for PCFs as well. Great sources to look for are the PCR library of EPD International and IBU’s published EPDs.

‍

The Cozero PCF module

‍

Cozero’s Product Carbon Footprint tool simplifies the calculation process for your production emissions. It offers businesses a practical way to analyze the carbon emissions of their products or product lines throughout their entire lifecycle. This module enhances carbon transparency at each step of the product journey by digitizing product data, automating emissions calculations, connecting with supplier networks, and providing detailed reporting and analysis. We’ll explore some of its key components in our next article. 

Accurately collecting carbon emission data at each stage of your product's lifecycle is essential for understanding and minimizing its environmental impact. By following best practices for data collection and applying precise calculation methodologies, you can ensure that your Product Carbon Footprint reflects the true sustainability performance of your products. This approach not only supports your company’s sustainability goals but also enhances transparency and accountability, positioning your business as a leader in responsible production and carbon management.

‍