ISO 14067 Product Carbon Footprint (PCF)

What is ISO 14067?

ISO 14067 is the international standard setting out requirements and guidelines for quantifying the carbon footprint of a product. It is not a free-standing method: it builds on the life cycle assessment principles, framework and requirements defined in ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, narrowing them to a greenhouse gas focus.

In practice that means a PCF study demands the same discipline as a full LCA — goal and scope definition, system boundary, data quality rules, an allocation approach and interpretation. What differs is the breadth of the result set: a PCF concentrates on the climate change category.

Under ISO 14067 the result is not a single undifferentiated number: fossil and biogenic greenhouse gas contributions are treated distinctly, and contributions from land use change are handled as their own element. That distinction directly affects how a result should be read, particularly for products containing biomass or wood.

What a PCF study covers

The items below may fall within scope depending on the project. Which ones are needed is settled together with the product, the intended use and how ready your data is.

• Goal and scope definition — who the result is for, and which decision or request it answers
• Product system and system boundary — which processes are in, which are out, and why
• Functional or declared basis — whichever is appropriate to the type of study
• Primary data collection — installation energy use, production volumes, recipes and scrap records
• Supply chain data — supplier data for the main inputs, or selection of a suitable background database
• Energy and transport data — electricity source, fuels, inbound transport distances and modes
• Life cycle modelling — the process chain, the allocation approach, cut-off rules
• GHG inventory — compiling the flows and converting them to a climate change result
• Fossil and biogenic contributions handled distinctly — including land use change where relevant to the product
• Interpretation of results — sensitivity, consistency and completeness checks
• Hotspot analysis — where in the product chain the emissions actually concentrate
• PCF report preparation — written so the reader can see how the result was reached
• Data and model documentation — so the study can be retraced
• Support for independent review / verification readiness — where a customer, a scheme or a contract requires it

How the system boundary is set

There is no single correct system boundary. It is defined by what the result will be used for, and stated explicitly in the report. The options below are the ones most often encountered in practice.

The choice of boundary directly governs comparability: two results calculated to different boundaries cannot be compared with each other. This is one of the most frequently overlooked points in practice.

PCF and EPD compared

The two are often confused. They can be fed by the same installation data, but they answer different questions and neither automatically replaces the other.

Neither automatically replaces the other. If your customer asks for an EPD, a PCF report will not satisfy it; if only carbon data is wanted, entering an EPD process may be unnecessary. The EPD Guide covers the EPD side in depth.

Who this is for

A PCF request usually arrives from outside rather than from the manufacturer's own initiative. The situations we meet most often:

• A customer request. A buyer needs carbon data for your product to use in their own product or corporate accounting.
• Supply chain carbon information. A manufacturer downstream is asking for primary data per input.
• Product-level decarbonisation analysis. Seeing which material, process or energy decision actually moves the result.
• Procurement and tender data. A specification asks for product-level carbon information.
• Preparing for product-level environmental reporting. Building the data infrastructure properly, once.
• Comparing internal scenarios. Where methodologically appropriate — between scenarios built on the same system boundary, data quality and assumptions.

How we work

We build the study through a verifier's lens: starting from knowledge of where a file gets questioned in independent review. That costs far less than correcting it afterwards.

If you already hold installation data collected for an EPD or for CBAM, the same data can often feed a PCF study too — provided the differences in scope and boundary are documented explicitly. Setting the data collection structure up correctly once makes the cost of the three outputs largely independent of each other.

A verifier's perspective

The points below are the ones most often questioned during independent review of product-level carbon studies. Getting them right at the outset is far easier than explaining them afterwards.

• Inconsistent system boundaries — The report text describes one boundary while the model was built to another. The most common finding, and the hardest to defend.
• Incomplete primary data — Plant-total energy data that cannot be broken down to product level. Where it cannot, the method and its justification have to be documented.
• Supplier data quality — Not knowing which scope, which year and which method lie behind the figure a supplier provided.
• Allocation — On multi-product lines it is not enough to have chosen an allocation method; why that method was chosen has to be justified too.
• Reference period — Energy, production and recipe data drawn from different periods. The data should represent the same period.
• Electricity data — Grid average, supplier-specific, or a contractual claim — and, if a claim, its evidence. An unevidenced renewable electricity claim does not survive verification.
• Biogenic carbon — Biogenic contributions merged with fossil ones, or not separated in the report. This directly affects results for wood and biomass-containing products.
• Transport assumptions — Default distances and empty return legs. Using assumptions is not the problem; using undocumented ones is.
• Traceability — Being able to trace a number in the report back to its source data. Without that, every review starts from the beginning again.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and basis

This page was prepared with reference to the framework of the standards below. As standard texts may be revised over time, the version in force should be used when the project scope is set.

Basis

• ISO 14067 — Greenhouse gases: carbon footprint of products
• ISO 14040 — Life cycle assessment: principles and framework
• ISO 14044 — Life cycle assessment: requirements and guidelines
• ISO 14025 — Type III environmental declarations (for comparison)

Last reviewed: 8 September 2026