Carbon Footprint: Concept, Methodology and Calculation
5
to differentiate from the competitors. Moreover, they can be used to respond to
increasing consumers needs for more environmentally friendly products and for
more climate related information along the production chain [20]. CF standards aim
also to identify the most relevant life cycle phases, from a GHG emissions point of
view, evaluate improvement potentials and increase the production efficiency.
Nevertheless, the solely use of CF as an environmental sustainability indicator,
especially for the development of sustainability policies at both company and government level, can be misleading because environmental problems includes not only
climate change but also other important issues, eg. eutrophication, toxicity impacts
and resource use. Therefore, the use of only CF can lead to problem shifting, when
GHG emissions are reduced but other environmental impacts increase. Policy-makers
and companies which develop actions and policy on the basis of the results provided
by the solely CF might thus ignore other environmental issues in their decisions,
which could prevent the society to obtain a more environmentally sustainable and
circular society [87].
3 Product Carbon (and Environmental) Footprint
In the previous Sect. 2, the origin and the general concept of CF has been explained.
In this Section, instead, an overview of the methodologies developed to calculate
CF of products will be given, without focusing on CF of organizations since, as
already stated, this topic is treated in Chapter by Scalbi et al. in this book. Also,
an overview of the Product Environmental Footprint methodology proposed by the
European Commission is presented.
Several different schemes have been developed by national and international standard associations to calculate Carbon Footprint; while the name of the indicator is
the same, the methodology can vary depending on the system adopted.
The PAS 20,250 was developed by the UK’s Carbon Trust in 2008. The Carbon
Trust is a publicly funded company, established by UK government in 2001,
which aims to support companies and organisation transition towards a low-carbon
economy. In those years, the Carbon Trust started an initiative to develop a robust
and consistent standard for the assessment of GHG emissions throughout product
life cycle, the Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 2050, in order to respond to
market needs for more sustainable products and to inform all the stakeholders about
product CF The PAS 2050 was published by the British Standards Institution (BSI)
and co-sponsored by the Carbon Trust and the UK Department for Environment
and is one of the first examples of the will to adopt the use of a single indicator
to compare products for the assessment of the life-cycle GHG emissions of products. The standard has developed a framework to quantify GHG emissions of products life cycle and is based on ISO LCA method, focusing only on climate change
impacts. More in detail, PAS 2050 can be applied to several products and it defines
requirements for the development and application of “supplementary requirements”
for specific product categories. A revised version of the standards was published in
5
to differentiate from the competitors. Moreover, they can be used to respond to
increasing consumers needs for more environmentally friendly products and for
more climate related information along the production chain [20]. CF standards aim
also to identify the most relevant life cycle phases, from a GHG emissions point of
view, evaluate improvement potentials and increase the production efficiency.
Nevertheless, the solely use of CF as an environmental sustainability indicator,
especially for the development of sustainability policies at both company and government level, can be misleading because environmental problems includes not only
climate change but also other important issues, eg. eutrophication, toxicity impacts
and resource use. Therefore, the use of only CF can lead to problem shifting, when
GHG emissions are reduced but other environmental impacts increase. Policy-makers
and companies which develop actions and policy on the basis of the results provided
by the solely CF might thus ignore other environmental issues in their decisions,
which could prevent the society to obtain a more environmentally sustainable and
circular society [87].
3 Product Carbon (and Environmental) Footprint
In the previous Sect. 2, the origin and the general concept of CF has been explained.
In this Section, instead, an overview of the methodologies developed to calculate
CF of products will be given, without focusing on CF of organizations since, as
already stated, this topic is treated in Chapter by Scalbi et al. in this book. Also,
an overview of the Product Environmental Footprint methodology proposed by the
European Commission is presented.
Several different schemes have been developed by national and international standard associations to calculate Carbon Footprint; while the name of the indicator is
the same, the methodology can vary depending on the system adopted.
The PAS 20,250 was developed by the UK’s Carbon Trust in 2008. The Carbon
Trust is a publicly funded company, established by UK government in 2001,
which aims to support companies and organisation transition towards a low-carbon
economy. In those years, the Carbon Trust started an initiative to develop a robust
and consistent standard for the assessment of GHG emissions throughout product
life cycle, the Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 2050, in order to respond to
market needs for more sustainable products and to inform all the stakeholders about
product CF The PAS 2050 was published by the British Standards Institution (BSI)
and co-sponsored by the Carbon Trust and the UK Department for Environment
and is one of the first examples of the will to adopt the use of a single indicator
to compare products for the assessment of the life-cycle GHG emissions of products. The standard has developed a framework to quantify GHG emissions of products life cycle and is based on ISO LCA method, focusing only on climate change
impacts. More in detail, PAS 2050 can be applied to several products and it defines
requirements for the development and application of “supplementary requirements”
for specific product categories. A revised version of the standards was published in