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Carbon Trust, partners offer guide to determining a product's carbon footprint
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| PAS 2050 offers a consistent way of counting the greenhouse gas emissions embedded in goods and services throughout their entire lifecycle |
November 12, 2008—Businesses based in the UK and elsewhere, as well as consumers/end users, can now assess the carbon footprint of goods and services and play a greater part in fighting climate change, thanks to a new standard launched by BSI British Standards (the UK's national standards body), the Carbon Trust (an independent company funded by the UK government), and Defra (the UK's Department for Environmental, Food, and Rural Affairs).
The standard, Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 2050 is a consistent way of counting the greenhouse gas emissions embedded in goods and services throughout their entire lifecycle--from sourcing raw materials to manufacture, distribution, use and disposal.
The aim of the new standard is to help businesses move beyond managing the emissions their own processes create, and to look at the opportunities for reducing emissions in the design, making, and supplying of products. This will then help businesses make goods or services which are less carbon intensive and ultimately develop new products with lower carbon footprints.
The Carbon Trust has already piloted PAS 2050 with 75 product ranges across a wide range of companies including: PepsiCo, Boots, Innocent, Marshalls, Tesco, Cadbury, Halifax, Coca Cola, Kimberly Clark, The Co-operative Group, Scottish & Newcastle, Coors Brewers, Muller, British Sugar, ABAgri, Sainsbury's, Danone, Continental Clothing Company, Colors Fruit, Morphy Richards, Mey Selections, and Aggregate Industries.
To download a free copy of PAS 2050: 2008--Specification for the assessment of the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of goods and services or Guide to PAS 2050: How to assess the carbon footprint of goods and services, visit the BSI Web site.
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