What Is a Product Carbon Footprint (ISO 14067)? And How It Relates to EPDs and CBAM

When a customer says “send us the carbon footprint of your product”, they usually do not mean your company’s annual emissions report. What they want is the greenhouse gas impact of that product across its life cycle, from raw materials to the factory gate (or to end of life) — the product carbon footprint (PCF). This article covers what a PCF is, how it differs from a corporate footprint, and how it connects to EPDs and CBAM, based on the confusions we see most often in practice.

What is a product carbon footprint?

A product carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas emissions caused by a single product over its life cycle, expressed as CO₂ equivalent (CO₂e). The international reference standard is ISO 14067, and the calculation follows life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology in line with ISO 14040/44. The result is expressed per functional or declared unit: for example “X kg CO₂e per tonne of steel profile” or “X kg CO₂e per m² of cladding”.

The scope can be defined in two ways: cradle-to-gate (raw materials plus production) or cradle-to-grave (including use and end of life). Which one is right depends on who the data is for — customer requests usually start with cradle-to-gate.

How it differs from a corporate carbon footprint

This is where we see the most confusion. The two answer different questions:

However good your corporate inventory is, it cannot answer the product-level question: two products made in the same factory can differ widely per unit. Conversely, one product’s PCF says nothing about the company’s total picture. Customer and tender requirements are shifting to product-level data; “please share your PCF” has become a standard supply-chain question.

The EPD connection: one model, two outputs

An EPD reports a product’s environmental performance across all impact categories, in modules governed by the PCR (A1–A3, C, D…), and passes independent verification. A product carbon footprint is a single line of that table: the greenhouse gas impact.

The practical consequence: one well-built LCA model feeds both. A study done for a customer’s PCF request can be turned into an EPD if it is built PCR-compliant from the start; and a manufacturer holding an EPD can already answer PCF requests. Running the two as separate projects with different consultants and different assumptions — one of the most expensive mistakes we see — doubles the budget and creates the risk of two reports that contradict each other.

The bridge to CBAM

If you export iron and steel, aluminium, cement or fertilisers to the EU, product-level emissions data is no longer just a commercial preference: CBAM declarations require embedded emissions by product (CN code) and installation. CBAM’s calculation rules are not identical to ISO 14067 — the system boundary and methodology are defined separately in CBAM legislation — but both draw on the same raw data: installation-level energy consumption, material inputs, production volumes and precursor data.

Where to start

Our advice is to proceed in order, without duplication: first clarify which products need data, at whose request, and with which scope (cradle-to-gate or cradle-to-grave). Then collect installation data — energy, materials, production volumes — in a form that can be broken down to product level. Once that infrastructure exists, the PCF report, the EPD and the CBAM data can all be produced from the same source, consistently. Our LCA consultancy and CBAM verification readiness services are built around exactly this setup. What an ISO 14067 study covers and how it runs is set out on our Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) service page.