In Bearbeitung_Product Carbon Footprint Calculation

The Product Carbon Footprint sums up the total greenhouse gas emissions generated by a product over the different stages of its life cycle. BASF's PCF calculation is based on GHG emissions from its own production plants and high-quality average data for purchased raw materials as well as purchased energy.

How is the PCF measured?

The PCF, expressed in kg CO₂ equivalents, reflects the climate change impact of air emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Increased GHGs in the troposphere result in warming of the earth’s surface.

What exactly does the PCF assess?

The climate change category takes into account that different gases have different climate change impacts on global warming. The total impact is described in CO₂ equivalents. We take into consideration all six Kyoto gases plus NF₃, measured by mass and converted into CO₂ equivalents using the 100-year global warming potential (GWP) coefficients of the 2013 IPCC 5th Assessment Report.

• BASF processes are far backward integrated, hence, many multi-output processes may be part of the BASF process network in the life cycle of the respective product.
• For its own processes, BASF applies allocation methods in line with published and accepted category rules of analogous processes where available, e.g., PlasticsEurope.
• Co-products which are only used in energy recovery are treated by system expansion by substitution.
• If all co-products are gases and include hydrogen, volume allocation is applied.
• Following the guidance of the WBCSD Chemicals, the ratio of the economic value of co-products is a criterion to decide between physical allocation and economic allocation: if the ratio is small, then physical allocation is applied, else, economic allocation is applied. Economic allocation factors are calculated from average prices over multiple years, to avoid fluctuations.