Calculate your Product Carbon Footprint (PCF)
Our PCF solution equips you with the tools and support to calculate emissions across the product lifecycle, engage suppliers, and deliver transparent reporting.
Calculate nowAutomated PCFs for product competition and compliance
Scope 3 expectations have shifted. Your customers are no longer asking if you're reducing, they want to know which products, how much, and based on what data.
Companies that can answer these questions quickly win tenders, retain key accounts, and set the terms of supply chain conversations. Those who can't risk losing business to competitors who can.
With automated product carbon footprint software, you turn product-level emissions data into a strategic asset – responding to customer requests in days instead of months, at a fraction of the cost of traditional approaches.
The challenges of product carbon accounting
High costs, low efficiency | Traditional PCFs are too expensive and slow to roll out across a full product portfolio, limiting you to a handful of SKUs |
Limited data availability | Heavy reliance on average values instead of supplier-specific primary data, with inconsistent inputs and manual tracking, create major obstacles |
Limited resources | Internal capacities to manage the complexity of lifecycle data, methodology choices, and supplier coordination are limited |
Regulatory complexity | Requirements across CSRD, SBTi's FLAG, PACT, EmpCo, etc. need calculations that will hold up under third-party verification. |
Why companies choose ClimatePartner for Product Carbon Footprints
Portfolio-wide cost savings
AI-supported calculations and reusable data deliver cost savings across your entire product portfolio compared to traditional approaches without increasing your workload.
Efficiency
Modular for B2B or B2C
Cradle-to-gate PCFs for standardised B2B data exchange. Cradle-to-grave PCFs for EMPCO-compliant consumer communication and product claims.
Flexibility
Future-proof compliance
Aligned with GHG Protocol, SBTi, FLAG, PACT, and EMPCO with audit-ready, interoperable logic that keeps you compliant as frameworks evolve.
Compliance
Transparent data quality
PACT-aligned data quality indicators (DQIs) and clear primary data share, helping seamless digital sharing with customers and across your value chain.
Data
See how automated PCFs work
Portfolio-wide coverage in minutes, not weeks
Most companies can only afford to calculate a handful of flagship PCFs manually.
With ClimatePartner's AI mass upload, you can upload product data at SKU level and calculate cradle-to-gate footprints across hundreds or thousands of products without sacrificing data quality.
AI that does the heavy lifting
Matching activity data to the right emission factors is the most time-consuming step in any PCF.
Our AI automates it by mapping your inputs against 50,000+ emission factors to improve consistency and speed.
Built for standards your customers expect
When a customer or auditor asks what methodology your PCFs follow, you need a clear answer.
Every calculation is aligned with the GHG Protocol and PACT frameworks, with data quality assessed across technological, geographical, and temporal representativeness.
Results you can confidently share
PCF requests often stall because sustainability, procurement, and commercial teams can't agree on what to send.
Each product receives a validated report that's ready to share with customers and internal stakeholders, reducing back-and-forth and enabling consistent responses across your supply chain.
Spot emissions hotspots and cost savings
Knowing your total footprint is useful. Knowing where the emissions come from is actionable.
Our product analytics break down emissions, revealing the hotspots that matter most for reduction and often uncovering cost inefficiencies in the process.
Self-service speed, expert support when needed
The repeatable work (data upload, emission factor matching, calculation) runs as self-service in the platform.
When you need deeper support for data preparation, methodology questions, or validation, our experts step in. You get the speed of automation with the confidence of human review.
How to calculate product footprints
Define product boundaries | Set the scope, cradle-to-gate or cradle-to-grave, and select which products to assess. |
Collect and process data | Upload product data at SKU level via mass upload. Integrate supplier-specific data points directly into the platform. Our EcoTransit connection handles transport emission inputs automatically. |
Calculate with AI and expert validation | AI-supported auto-matching maps your activity data to our 50,000+ emission factors. Our experts then validate results, checking methodology, adjusting inputs where needed, and ensuring audit-readiness. |
Analyse, report, optimise | Receive validated reports with emission breakdowns, hotspot identification, and methodology transparency. |
PCF checklist for suppliers
Everything suppliers need to know to start their first Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) calculation. No matter what maturity level you are at, our PCF software helps you deliver results faster than you think.
Download nowDeliverables included in every PCF
In-platform analytics
→ Emission distribution across lifecycle stages
→ Identification of emissions hotspots
→ Excel download of input/output data
→ Data quality scoring (PACT-aligned DQIs)
ClimatePartner validated report
→ Expert-validated PCF for each product
→ Full methodology and data transparency
→ SBTi-compliant disclosure (incl. FLAG and biogenic emissions)
→ Ready for B2B data exchange or consumer-facing claims
How clients rate the ClimatePartner Hub
"Other tools can be quite cumbersome — ClimatePartner guides you seamlessly through the entire calculation process. The follow-up exchange with your personal advisor is excellent."
Krontech Maschinenbau GmbH
Head of Quality
Over 6,000 companies work with us on their net zero strategies.
ANKER
ARAG
AXA
Boots
COSNOVA BEAUTY
deuter
EDDING
EDEKA
essity
GLS
Hansgrohe Group
HÖRMANN
MANN + HUMMEL
mondi
SIGG
UHU
Vodafone
Walgreens
Your PCF is the starting point
Learn more about carbon emissions
Cradle-to-gate vs. cradle-to-grave
When companies calculate a Product Carbon Footprint, one of the first, and most consequential, decisions they make is where to draw the line.
Climate labelling on products
In addition to reducing their footprint, companies engaging in climate action increase their competitiveness and strengthen their brand image while meeting stakeholder expectations.
Life cycle Assessment (LCA)
A life cycle assessment is the framework used to assess a product’s environmental impact. An internationally recognised tool, an LCA tracks the emissions produced and resources consumed along the value chain.
Product Carbon Footprint FAQs
A Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) measures the total greenhouse gas emissions generated throughout a product's lifecycle, from raw material extraction and production to distribution, use, and end-of-life disposal. It's expressed in CO₂ equivalents (CO₂e) and provides a comprehensive view of a product's climate impact, helping businesses identify reduction opportunities and communicate sustainability efforts transparently.
With traditional methods, calculating PCFs can take weeks per product. However, ClimatePartner's automated PCF software significantly reduces this timeframe, enabling you to calculate multiple product footprints in minutes rather than weeks. The exact timeline depends on data availability and the complexity of a product's supply chain.
A Corporate Carbon Footprint (CCF) calculates all emissions from an entire organization across scopes 1, 2, and 3. A Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) focuses specifically on the emissions of a single product throughout its lifecycle. For companies with just one product, the PCF and CCF may overlap significantly, but most businesses need both: a CCF for overall company reporting and PCFs for product-level transparency and claims.
Not necessarily. PCFs can be measured using different system boundaries depending on your goals. Cradle-to-gate covers emissions from raw material extraction through production (ending at the factory gate), which is ideal for B2B suppliers and supply chain transparency. Cradle-to-grave includes the full lifecycle, adding distribution, use phase, and end-of-life, which is better suited for consumer-facing claims and complete impact assessment.
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