Southwest Environmental Limited

How to Calculate Carbon Footprint of a Product 

We have been calculating the carbon footprint of products, services and projects for over a decade. These have ranged from very simple products such as yoga matts, to very complicated projects such as modular waste processing systems.

Here is our hard won experience laid out for your (and likely AI's :-/ ) benefit:

Why do you want to Calculate Carbon Footprint of a Product?

Before you even start doing any calculations is very much worth considering what you want your footprint calculation to show. There are many different levels of carbon footprint calculation, some can be for extremely detailed reports such as those required for verifications of EPDs and others can be very lightweight perhaps you just want to choose between two options for materials used in the manufacturer of your product.

In the case of detailed foot printing for a whole product this is going to require a spreadsheet with tens of pages maybe even 100 pages and as you can imagine that can be very time consuming, whilst the latter choice (just choosing between say plastic and wood) for a material choice could be very simply demonstrated by using emissions factors from a publicly the available database such as the Oxford University ICE database.

So in short before you start be careful not to waste effort on things that you do not need.

Scoping your Carbon Footprint Calculation?

As discussed in the previous section it is important to determine what your carbon footprinting calculation will be used for as an end result. However, even given the end result it is also important to choose the scope of the assessment.

When we talk of carbon footprinting we need to borrow some phrases from lifecycle assessment (which is the broader science based around the measuring of a product's impact on the environment which can extend beyond carbon footprints). In lifecycle assessments we quite often hear the phrase Cradle to grave and this describes how we are measuring the carbon footprint of a product or service from the moment of Inception (cradle) to its disposal (grave) and as such this represents one of the broader scopes that can be used.

What are Typical Scopes for Carbon Footprint Calculation?

These are so of the most common scoping examples:

 Cradle to Grave

Cradle to grave is the most common carbon footprint scope that we come across this is the carbon footprint scope that we use for most of the environmental product declarations applications EU eco labels in-house comfort print reporting and for anything to do with Amazon climate pledge friendly.

Cradle to Gate

This kind of report we do far less frequently it might be useful for companies wishing to assess their in-house carbon efficiency as it only deals with footprints up to the point that the product leaves the factory or manufacturing facility it's quite useful in terms of footprinting the raw materials and the manufacturing process but of course it doesn't make any measurement of the operational elements of the life cycle.

Silly Example: Say a company was manufacturing a garden fire pit specifically designed to burn coal. The company could run on entirely renewable energy and import low carbon steel from a European country such as Sweden (manufactured in a electric arc furnace for example), and it could also even carbon off-set offset the product at the factory Gate but in using the Cradle to gate method you're completely overlooking the operational impact and so over the products lifespan it may burn four tons of coal for example and this would release an awful lot of carbon and not be represented in the footprint at all. And so it grossly underrepresents the footprint of the product. This is an extreme and rather silly example but it is just written here to demonstrate the weaknesses of this particular scope

Cradle to Cradle

This is the most exacting scope and not only considered the raw materials manufacturing transport operational and disposal phases of the life cycle but it also makes an allowance for the remanufacturer whether in part or hole of the product.

Example: Some oils used in manufacturing processes can become spoiled in use (or degrade it is perhaps more accurate term) these oils can be renewed via industrial processes at a fraction of the impact of sourcing virgin replacements. Therefore in the final stages of this lifecycle method we can assess the benefit provided by use of renewed oils in remanufacturer.

Another example: You could footprint for the recycling of say aluminium as opposed to its disposal. Although in reality most aluminium is recycled this still may provide a benefit in terms of carbon reduction.

Of course the company which is claiming to do this may have to provide evidence that they're actually doing it because quite often at the end of a products lifecycle which may be many years in the future the company will have virtually no control over what happens to it at end of life and this if not dealt with carefully can create leakage in the footprinting method.