What data is required for accurate PCF assessment?

Accurate Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) assessment depends on high-quality, comprehensive data covering all stages of a product’s lifecycle. To calculate a precise PCF, companies must gather information from upstream suppliers, internal operations, and downstream processes. Key data types include:

1. Raw material and component data

Information on material types, quantities, extraction methods, recycled content, and production routes. These inputs strongly influence embedded emissions and are often the largest driver of Scope 3 impacts.

2. Manufacturing and processing data

Energy consumption, fuel use, process emissions, machine activity, and production yields from owned or controlled operations (Scope 1 and Scope 2). High-quality data in this area helps companies understand operational hotspots and identify reduction opportunities.

3. Transportation and logistics data

Transport distances, modes (e.g., truck, rail, sea, air), fuel types, and load factors — all of which significantly affect upstream and downstream emissions.

4. Use-phase and end-of-life data

Emissions resulting from product use, maintenance, disposal, recycling, or recovery. These stages can be critical for accurate lifecycle modeling depending on the product category.

Primary vs. Secondary Data

• Primary data from suppliers, manufacturing sites, and logistics providers is ideal because it reflects real operational conditions.
• Secondary data, such as industry averages or emissions factors from databases, fills information gaps when primary data is unavailable or incomplete.

However, ensuring consistency, comparability, and completeness across these datasets is essential for achieving a reliable PCF aligned with ISO 14067 and the GHG Protocol.

Sustamize as a data foundation for accurate PCF calculation

Sustamize provides access to high-resolution, verified CO₂e datasets for materials, components, manufacturing processes, logistics, and more. These datasets enable companies to:

• fill supplier data gaps with reliable lifecycle-based values,
• standardize data across regions and suppliers,
• improve accuracy and audit readiness,
• reduce the effort required to calculate compliant and transparent PCFs.

By combining structured lifecycle methodologies with high-quality emissions data, sustamize ensures that businesses can conduct precise PCF assessments with minimal manual effort.

Would you like to improve the accuracy of your PCF assessments?

Get in touch with our team or request access to sustamize’s emissions databases to streamline and strengthen your product footprint calculations.