Calculating a Product Carbon Footprint

This guide walks you through how Emitwise can help you automatically calculate a PCF for your product.

Introduction

A Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) measures the emissions associated with manufacturing and delivering a specific product. This is critical when you want to:

• Show customers exactly how much CO2e goes into each product you supply.
• Identify the most carbon-intensive parts of your product lifecycle and target them for reduction.

Overview of the 3-Part Process

Emitwise’s PCF tool guides you through three main steps:

1. Details: Enter product info, facility, reporting period, and weight/unit details.
2. Materials: Provide a Bill of Materials (BOM).
3. Manufacturing: Enter utilities data, either at the facility or product level.

To access the tool, navigate to your Profile and switch to the Product Carbon Footprints section. Click on the “Calculate a free Product Carbon Footprint” button.

Let’s break each step down in detail.

Part 1: Details

1. Product Information
   • Name: The official name of your product.
   • SKU: A unique identifier or code you use internally.
   • Category: Select the category (or industry sector) that best fits your product.
2. Facility
   • Indicate where the product is manufactured (the country and any relevant facility name if applicable).
3. Reporting Period
   • Specify the 12-month period you want to cover for this PCF.
4. Units & Weight
   • If sold by unit (e.g., 1 laptop), provide the average weight per unit.
   • If sold by weight (e.g., kilograms), confirm how you measure that weight (e.g., 1 kg per bag of product).

Part 2: Materials (Bill of Materials)

A Bill of Materials (BOM) is a list of all the parts and materials that go into making a single unit (or kilogram) of your product. It helps us understand how much each component contributes to the overall footprint.

1. Name of Each Part/Material
   • E.g., “Aluminum casing,” “Circuit board,” “Packaging.”
2. Country of Origin
   • The country where this part or material is produced.
3. Quantity & Unit
   • How many of that item (or how many kilograms) go into one unit (or 1 kg) of your product.
4. Weight (If Needed)
   • If your quantity is in discrete units (e.g., 3 circuit boards), specify the weight per board so Emitwise can calculate total weight.

Part 3: Manufacturing (Utilities Data)

1. Select the level of manufacturing data

   You have two options for providing manufacturing data:

   Facility Level

   • Utilities data for 12 months at the entire facility that produces this product
   • This is useful when you have facility-wide utility bills but can't break down usage per product

   Product Level (Most accurate)

   • Utilities data required to produce one unit of this product
   • Choose this if you can specifically measure or calculate the resources used per product unit

   

2. Enter Facility and Product Information

   This step is crucial for accurate carbon footprint calculation as it enables proper emission allocation and standardized comparisons.

   Required information:

   • Data for the selected 12-month reporting period at your facility
   • Total weight across all products if using facility-level data
   • Currency for revenue data (e.g., USD)
   • For the specific product:
     • Total weight for this product
     • Unit of measurement (e.g., kg)
     • Total revenue generated
     • Currency of revenue

   

3. Provide Energy & Utilities data

   • Provide 12 months of data on electricity, water, natural gas, etc. used by the facility during the product’s production process.
   • The system will automatically select which input data it expects the product to have.
   • Important notes:
     • Provide data for the entire facility during the product's production process
     • Emitwise automatically models your Energy & Utilities data based on industry averages if you cannot provide primary data
     • Include all relevant utility types that contribute to the manufacturing process

   

   • Notice how Emitwise automatically models your Energy & Utilities data based on industry averages in case you’re not able to provide primary data.

   

4. Review & Submit

   • Once you’ve entered your manufacturing data, review the summary of your PCF inputs.
   • Emitwise checks for missing or inconsistent info. If everything looks good, click Submit.
   • The system will perform several automatic actions and checks:
     • Select the most accurate emission factor for every material
     • Select the most accurate allocation method for manufacturing data
     • Select the most accurate emission factor for manufacturing data
     • Calculate Product Carbon Footprint
     • Perform data quality checks

   

Conclusion

You’ve completed your Product Carbon Footprint in three stages: Details, Materials, and Manufacturing. This structured approach ensures a comprehensive view of each product’s emissions, from raw materials to factory energy use. If you encounter data quality warnings, you’ll receive an email detailing next steps. Otherwise, you can share your PCF with customers or download it for internal records.