Products go through multiple different activities throughout their life cycles. They begin as raw materials, get transported to multiple locations, get used by consumers, and eventually are either disposed of or recycled. Accurate assumptions and calculation methodologies at each life cycle stage ensure you get the most accurate insights of your product’s performance. This guide helps you understand what you should aim to do at each of the following life cycle stage:

In this guide:

Logging data in Cozero’s PCF module functions similarly to the CCF data input. At each life cycle stage, you must use the drop-downs to select the relevant emissions Category, and target the activity with the selection of Subcategory. The final selection, Activity, defines the emissions intensity used to calculate the emissions, known as the emission factor. It is important you select the most specific activity that your data refers to, as this makes the calculation more accurate.

As part of the data input, you also need to select the type of data you are accounting. The options typically include activity data such as quantity of goods, fuel consumption, or mass-distances transported. There are also options to use direct CO2e measurements, if you have received this primary data from your value chain partners. The use of spend-data is also available for some categories. We strongly recommend the use of activity data or primary data over spend-based data. Not only will this make your results more accurate, but it also makes them aligned with the common PCF standards, which often do not allow the use of spend-based data.

A full life cycle boundary starting from Raw materials acquisition and ending with the disposal of product at the end of its life.

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

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

It is important that you adjust all inputs to fit the product measurement unit selected in “Product profile”. All the inputs should cover everything needed to manufacture the selected quantity of product. For example, if your product measurement unit is 1 kg, the sum of all the inputs for category “Production goods & materials” should cover everything needed to manufacture 1 kg of the product. Please note the quantities might differ if your product includes packaging. Read more below on the “Packaging” section.

It is important to take into account any waste product or product scraps generated during the production processes when accounting for raw materials, 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 product 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.

Similarly, the Purchased logistics inputs for each raw material should be based on the weight needed per 1 kg of the product. The easiest way to do this is to input data in mass-distance units, such as tonne-km. Simply input the raw material’s weight you used in “Production goods & materials”, and the one-way distance from your supplier’s location to your production facility. If you want to use other data, such as fuel consumption, it is important you adjust the vehicle’s fuel consumption per the product measurement unit.

The next life cycle step 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:

It is important that your selections cover all the activities required before the product leaves the factory gate.

Once again, it’s also important to 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 to obtain 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 economical allocation to obtain data on product level. It is important to remember that such allocation should always be avoided whenever possible, as it can result in inaccurate results.

Typically, it is not necessary to include any non-production energy demand in the product carbon footprint, such as overhead lighting, air conditioning, or office energy consumption. These activities are often called non-attributable processes. Sometimes it is not possible to differentiate the energy demand of production from the total facility demand. In these cases, companies can include non-attributable processes in their PCFs, but we recommend documenting all such inclusions separately. This will make it easier for you to communicate the results publicly, or for your customers.

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

Packaging is commonly considered as an optional input in PCFs, and the end-goal of the PCF results whether you should include its impacts or not. 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 a lot depending on the receiving customer, purchase quantity, or transport mode. Sometimes your customer might even only want to know the emissions per product itself and exclude packaging impacts.

As with every life cycle step, it is important to adjust the packaging data inputs to the product measurement unit. Here, it’s also important to understand how you want to present the final PCF result. If you want to give a complete emissions intensity for the product per the product measurement unit, it is important that the input quantities of your raw materials and packaging together refer to the Product measurement unit, such as 1 kg. This might require you to adjust the product bill of materials to not overstate the raw material quantities. If you want your emissions to reflect the 1 kg of product without packaging, but account for packaging separately, you can simply make sure your raw materials account to manufacturing 1 kg of product. Then, make sure packaging inputs reflect the quantities needed for the packaging of that 1 kg of product. In this case, it is important to document and report what your final number includes.

By including the above steps, you have completed a life cycle boundary known as cradle-to-gate. This measures the impacts up until the product leaves the manufacturing facility.

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

It is important that your selections cover all the distribution and storage activities the product goes through in its lifetime.

Once again, your inputs should correspond to the product measurement unit. Distances for downstream transportation activities or warehousing can be difficult to obtain, as these fall outside the company’s sphere of influence. In Cozero, you receive standard assumptions for transport distances for some product types. You can also build assumptions based on your sales regions and the typical mode of sales, and use them to estimate the distances the product goes through. A great standardized resource is to follow the guidelines set by the European Commission as part of 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.

The next life cycle step begins with the product arriving to the end consumer, and it covers the total energy use of the product in customer use until it gets discarded. When collecting data for this step, it is important to keep in mind the functional unit you defined in your “Product Profiles”. As this step covers the energy use of the product throughout its life cycle, it is important to define how long the product is used in its lifetime. This is an important reporting requirement to create context for the PCF results. For example, to meet the defined function, consider how many years the product is expected to last, how often it is used, and how much energy it consumes throughout its lifetime filling that function.

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 washing of clothes, or the use of a vehicle engine in a car.

Data collection for this step is often complicated. If you have instructions for a recommended use of your product that you provide to your customers, this is often an excellent place to start to create an average or recommended use scenario. Another option is to survey your customers on how they use the products. As a final step, looking for average data is a solid option. You can read more about downstream data collection below in the section “How can I collect data for downstream activities?”

The product’s final life cycle step 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 go through: recycling significantly reduces the impacts, while landfilling is often the worst option. If you are unsure how your product gets disposed of, we recommend researching the average waste treatment methods of relevant materials in your sales regions, and using these to inform your assumptions.

In addition to the treatment impacts, this life cycle step must include the transportation to the waste treatment site. Typically, these impacts are already included in the emission factors we use, and don’t need to be accounted for separately.

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 most important customer companies.

A great outside resource to use for assumptions are Environmental Product Declarations published by other companies for similar products. These 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 great source of information are 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 if primary data 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.