BSI British Standards, the Carbon Trust and Defra have launched a standard for calculating greenhouse gas emissions. The standard – called PAS 2050 – is a consistent way of counting the greenhouse gas emissions embedded in goods and services throughout their entire life cycle – from sourcing raw materials, through 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, Müller, British Sugar, ABAgri, Sainsbury’s, Danone, Continental Clothing Company, Colors Fruit, Morphy Richards, Mey Selections and Aggregate Industries.
Some of the results include:
- Boots has redesigned its logistics network so that products could be delivered direct to stores, reducing road miles and packaging. This alone has reduced the carbon footprint of making the shampoo by 10 per cent.
- Innocent worked with one of its suppliers to reduce waste to landfill. Within six months a 54 per cent reduction was achieved.
Defra has also carried out research testing of the PAS on up to 100 food products through their production, manufacture and distribution and is studying the greenhouse gas impacts of food preparation and consumption in the home.
Carbon Trust Chief Executive Tom Delay said:
“For the first time, businesses have a robust, consistent standard for measuring the carbon footprint of their goods and services.
PAS 2050 will pave the way for business to provide transparent and reliable information on the carbon content of their products.
A full copy of the Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 2050 can be found at www.bsigroup.com/pas2050
