What Is a Product Carbon Footprint?

Growing concerns about climate change and environmental degradation have seen the term “carbon footprint” emerge –  a crucial measure for individuals, organisations and communities to quantify their impact on the environment.

At its core, carbon footprint is a simplified metric to assess the environmental repercussions of our daily actions. Whether it’s driving a car, eating a steak or buying new clothes, every aspect of our lives contributes to our own personal carbon footprint. Similarly, companies, products and entire industries have carbon footprints. 

So what exactly is a product carbon footprint, and why is it so important? 

This article will explore:

• What is a carbon footprint?
• What is a product carbon footprint?
• How is carbon footprint calculated?
• What is CO2-eq?
• The downfalls: Does carbon footprint give the full picture?
• Product carbon footprint vs company carbon footprint – what’s the difference?
• What BioPak’s doing to show our product carbon footprint

Carbon footprint is a simple way to communicate our impact on climate change, either as an individual, group, or company. 

It quantifies the climate impact of our actions into a single metric expressed in CO2-eq (CO2 equivalents), giving us a greater understanding of how our actions impact climate change and especially what we can do to reduce this impact.

The ‘size’ of our carbon footprint depends on several factors – but it can be summarised as a measure of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere due to the activities of a person, product, company, industry, community or region.

For example, your personal carbon footprint includes emissions from all facets of life – driving your car, the food you eat, the clothes you buy. And the larger your footprint, the bigger contribution you’re making toward anthropogenic (AKA man-made) climate change. 

But for the purpose of this article, we’re focusing on product carbon footprint (PCF) and company carbon footprint – and how brands like BioPak can use credible carbon footprint data to embrace transparency.

A product’s carbon footprint reflects the specific greenhouse gas emissions associated with a single product or service. That includes emissions associated with the entire life cycle of a product – including raw materials, manufacturing, packaging, freight, and end of life disposal. 

We’ll explore product carbon footprint and BioPak’s methodology more below.

The climate is rapidly changing.

2011-2020 marked the warmest decade on record, with global average temperatures reaching 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels in 2019 (source).

Yet as an individual, company or community, it can be easy to feel disconnected from what’s happening to the climate. What do your actions have to do with the severe weather events we’ve all been experiencing?

So rather than burying our heads in the sand, understanding a product's carbon footprint helps us make the connection between our lives, the products we support, and the wider impact on the environment.

While Carbon Footprint is a way to simplify our impact and make it easily digestible – the way we calculate it can be complex with many factors at play. 

Take a BioPak product, for example. Just like humans, a product goes through different ‘life phases’ that all cause emissions. There are emissions from the extraction of raw materials, production, transport, and finally, the end of life disposal. These all must be taken into account when calculating a product’s carbon footprint (which is easier said than done). This is often referred to as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) – a methodology that looks at the environmental impacts throughout the entire life cycle of a product. 

Learn more about Life Cycle Assessment.  

To calculate carbon footprint, it’s important to understand the role of different gases and the meaning of CO2-eq.

Greenhouse gases (GHG), like carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide, trap heat from the sun and cause the Earth's temperature to rise. CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas, but others also contribute to global warming.

So what do we mean by “CO2-eq?” Essentially, because every greenhouse gas has different potency and “global warming potential” (GWP) – we convert the effects of other gases (like methane and nitrous oxide) into the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide (in other words, translating each gas to the carbon dioxide amount with the same global warming potential). 

Therefore, a carbon footprint is measured in units of carbon dioxide, expressed as “CO2-equivalent” or simply “CO2-eq”. 

As you can see, CO2 has the lowest warming potential when compared with Methane, Nitrous Oxide and Fluorinated Gases.

Taking into account the warming potential of different greenhouse gases gives us a broader perspective and helps us identify ways to reduce our climate impact and move toward sustainable practices.

Not exactly. While carbon footprint is an incredibly valuable metric, it shouldn’t be used on its own, especially in product, business and industry calculations. 

Becoming tunnel-visioned and focusing solely on carbon footprint can overlook other important factors, like the impact on human health and biodiversity.

That’s when we can turn to a concept called “eco-costs.”  

“Eco-costs” are defined as environmental costs expressed in a currency that are not yet reflected in the market price of a product. These can be broken down into four main categories: carbon footprint, impact on biodiversity, impact on human health, and impact on material scarcity (four categories requested by European legislation). 

Having multiple categories allows us to discover a product's complete impact on the environment – and take action to reduce its biggest impact categories (which isn't always just carbon impact). 

Learn more about eco-costs.

A product’s carbon footprint should not be confused with a company’s carbon footprint. They’re not the same thing.

A company’s carbon footprint reflects the bigger picture – the overall environmental impact of an entire organisation. On the other hand, a product’s carbon footprint reflects the specific emissions associated with a single product or service. 

Our product carbon footprint* includes emissions from: 

• Raw materials and product manufacturing - that’s sourcing of the required materials and making of the products
• Packaging for a carton of a product - that includes the cardboard boxes and sleeves our products are packaged in
• Freight of the carton - that includes sea freight from our manufacturing partners and road freight for the last mile deliveries to our customers
• End of life disposal - that’s a consideration for where our products end up at the end of their useful life (composting, landfill, incineration or recycling)

*At BioPak, we calculate our carbon footprint per carton of our product, as this is how they’re sold.

Our company's carbon footprint includes all of the above for production of all of our products, plus emissions from our office and warehouse operations.

Learn more about BioPak’s Emissions Reductions Plan.

Note: to assess the carbon footprint of our products and global warming impact, we use the IPCC 2013 100 year method. This means we take into account all released emissions within a time frame of 100 years.

At BioPak, we’re taking huge steps to embrace transparency through carbon footprint labelling. 

At BioPak, we value continuous material and technology innovation – and that includes partnering with leaders in carbon footprint calculations for the packaging industry: Pickler. 

Thank to Pickler’s environmental impact calculation software, every product on the BioPak website will have a dedicated “Environmental Impact Label” showing the product's Eco-Cost and Carbon Footprint. When you click on the “read full report” link, you’ll be taken to the environmental impact report. Here, you’ll find detailed information on the environmental impact of the packaging.

We urge more companies and industries to jump on board and embrace transparency. By doing so, you’ll uncover areas where you can reduce your impact and allow consumers to make informed purchase decisions.