CarbonChain's Product Carbon Accounting Methodology (PCAM) outlines how our platform calculates greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to products for businesses involved in trading, manufacturing, or financing these activities. We calculate emissions throughout the entire product lifecycle, from raw material extraction to product use and, when applicable, end-of-life treatment.

On our platform, clients can access their GHG emissions data through various dashboards. Clients can also generate reports for reporting purposes or to share with external stakeholders.

Our methodology adheres to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Product Standard, which is considered the best-in-class standard in product carbon footprinting. Additionally, we align our approach with specific guidance relevant to different sectors.

CarbonChain serves a diverse clientele comprising commodity traders, financial institutions engaged in commodity trading, and manufacturers of various goods.

Our clients are looking to gain insights into the GHG emissions associated to the products they trade and/or manufacture. Through understanding their supply chains and studying specific product life cycles, our clients seek to make informed business decisions that lead to long-term reductions in GHG emissions.

CarbonChain's primary objective is to empower our clients by providing them with comprehensive information about the GHG emissions associated with their supply chains and product life cycles. This information supports a wide range of actions, including, but not limited to:

CarbonChain’s platform assesses the global warming potential impact stemming from GHG emissions associated with the products assessed.

CarbonChain adheres to the following principles when measuring GHG emissions:

CarbonChain’s methodology is aligned with the GHG Protocol - Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard, ensuring precision and reliability in our processes.

Additionally, we draw guidance from a range of other relevant standards, including:

Additionally, we use sector-specific guidelines to tailor our approach to individual industries. It's important to note that in the rare instance of a conflict between the GHG Protocol and any other standards or provisions, the GHG Protocol Product Standard always takes precedence, ensuring accuracy and consistency in our methodologies.

This section outlines CarbonChain’s general assessment boundary setting process.

CarbonChain performs PCFs for the assessed products our clients trade or manufacture. To effectively measure and analyse the assessed product, and to determine which emission sources should be considered, we rely on the concepts of unit of analysis, reference flow, and functional unit as per the GHG Protocol Product Standard.

The unit of analysis sets out the performance characteristics and services delivered by the assessed product.

Final products that are traded or manufactured, are sold in the form that they are ultimately consumed by the end user. Where our clients sell a final product, the unit of analysis is defined as a functional unit. This represents the quantity of the product and other inputs necessary to fulfil the product's function.

Intermediate products that are traded or manufactured, are sold to be further processed into another product or service. Where our clients sell an intermediate product, the unit of analysis is defined as a reference flow. This represents the quantity of sold, traded or manufactured product (e.g. 1 tonne of crude oil, 100 tonnes of alumina).

CarbonChain defines and justifies the GHG emission boundaries for each product assessment, tailored to the specific product type. We offer assessments covering cradle-to-gate, cradle-to-customer, and cradle-to-grave GHG emissions.

At CarbonChain, we create a detailed process map for every product we assess. This map serves to define the sources of GHG emissions attributed to the assessed product's entire life cycle. The content and layout of these maps can differ based on the applied boundary. An illustrative example of such a process map is provided in below, showcasing the attributable processes within each life cycle stage of the product's assessment boundary.

In our assessments, CarbonChain includes all attributable GHG emission sources, excluding only those that prove insignificant in terms of emissions. Any emissions excluded must cumulatively account for no more than 1% of the total emissions of the product. Processes determined to be insignificant are omitted from calculations, and these exclusions are thoroughly identified and justified.

One of CarbonChain's unique selling points lies in our ability to seamlessly integrate supply chain insights into the upstream and downstream paths of the assessed products. We develop supply chain routes tailored for specific products, linking them to precise locations that can be mapped to client data, such as loading ports or discharge ports. The communication of these supply chain insights is facilitated through our supply chain mapping Data Quality Ratings.

Allocation, the process of dividing or apportioning GHG emissions among different products or processes contributing to those emissions, is crucial, especially in situations where multiple products are produced simultaneously. CarbonChain incorporates allocation methodologies in our assessments to accurately represent the contributions of the assessed product to the total GHG emissions of the shared process.

In instances where allocation is necessary, CarbonChain follows the process described below:

In instances where product category rules stipulate specific allocation guidelines, CarbonChain adheres to these rules, prioritising alignment with recognised standards like the GHG Protocol Product Standard or similar standards such as ISO 14044 and ISO 14067.

CarbonChain applies the recycled content method, also known as the cut-off method or 100-0 method, into our product GHG emissions calculations when applicable. This approach involves allocating GHG emissions and removals from the recycling process to the life cycle that utilises the recycled material.

Once the assessment boundary of a product is defined, CarbonChain works with the client to collect essential data required for calculating the product carbon footprint (PCF) results. To compute a PCF, two types of data are necessary; activity data and emission factors.

Activity data provides information about the GHG emission sources for each attributable process within a product’s assessment boundary. Emission factors link the activity data from those sources to a product’s GHG emissions.

Activity data is all quantitative or qualitative data that provides insights into the level of activity that results in GHG emissions. Examples of the two types of activity data include:

CarbonChain places a high priority on using primary data for supply chain processes and stages along the product’s life cycle that our clients have operational control over. Whenever feasible, we rely on primary activity data provided by our clients. This data encompasses all processes within their ownership or control and extends to include as much information as possible about processes both upstream and downstream from the client's operations.

CarbonChain performs quality checks at each data processing step to ensure data accuracy and reliability.

Emission factors (EFs) are the intensity-based emissions associated with the production and/ or use of a unit amount of product, material, or energy. EFs are quantified in carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) per unit of product.

CarbonChain maintains a comprehensive Emission Factor (EF) database, utilising data from various sources to derive specific EFs. These sources encompass a wide array of third-party providers and EFs generated by our internal experts. This approach enables CarbonChain to develop EFs tailored to the assets where GHG emissions occur within our clients' upstream and downstream supply chains.

GHG emissions for a given material, energy or product are calculated by multiplying the activity data by an emission factor. These GHG emissions are summed for all processes across the product’s life cycle to present the total emissions.

The final result is then scaled to the unit of analysis, which provides the emissions intensity of the product (the GHG emissions per unit of product).

CarbonChain evaluates each EF applied in emissions calculations against the five data quality indicators recommended by the GHG Protocol, namely: technology, geography, temporal, completeness, and reliability. Based on these criteria, we assign Data Quality Ratings (DQRs) to communicate data quality to clients.

CarbonChain combines individual data quality ratings to generate an overall emission factor quality (EFQ) (Table 2) for each EF:

CarbonChain has a proprietary digital platform for storing, visualising and reporting PCFs for our clients. Accessible through a user-friendly dashboard, our platform empowers clients to generate individual PCF reports.

We adhere to the GHG Protocol Product Standard, which sets robust standards for carbon accounting. Our reports are consistent with GHG Protocol guidelines, incorporating an attributional approach, primary data usage, detailed process maps, and separate reporting of PCF life cycle stages. While our platform aligns with GHG Protocol standards, it can be tailored to alternate standards where required, without altering the calculation methodology.

Key features of CarbonChain PCF reports: