Calculating and Utilizing Product Carbon Footprints Efficiently
Substain helps you flexibly map product structures, variants, and lifecycle phases. This enables you to calculate CO₂e emissions across relevant stages of the value chain and establish a robust foundation for customer inquiries, requests for proposals, reporting, and product development.
- Calculate PCFs for individual products, variants, and portfolios
- Present product data, bills of materials, and processes in a structured manner
- Take into account cradle-to-gate and cradle-to-grave
- Highlighting Reports, Comparisons, and Opportunities for Reduction
Everything you need for your PCFs —all in one platform
Product carbon footprints quickly become complex: materials, suppliers, processes, transportation routes, and usage phases must be accurately mapped. Substain organizes this information into a clear structure—so you can efficiently calculate PCFs and use the results in a transparent way.
- Scalable PCF Calculation: Calculate Product Carbon Footprints not only for individual products, but also for variants, configurations, and entire product portfolios.
- Structured Product Data: Clearly map materials, bills of materials, processes, and relevant lifecycle phases.
- Stored Emission Factors: Use existing emission factors and, if necessary, supplement them with your own or supplier-specific factors.
- Flexible system boundaries: Consider different accounting boundaries—for example, cradle-to-gate or cradle-to-grave.
- Versioning & Scenarios: Compare different data sets, assumptions, or variants and see how changes affect the product carbon footprint.
- Reports & Analyses: Create transparent analyses and reports for customers, bids, internal analyses, or product development.
How do you get your product data into Substain?
Product data is turned into reports, comparisons, and decisions
With Substain, calculating a product’s carbon footprint is just the beginning. The software makes emissions visible, comparable, and actionable—for customer communication, tenders, product development, and internal management.
PCF Reports
Create structured reports for individual products, variants, or product groups.
Compare Options
Compare products, materials, suppliers, or assumptions, and identify which factors have the greatest impact on the outcome.
Identifying Opportunities for Reduction
Identify where, along the product life cycle, the greatest opportunities for CO₂e reduction lie.
Reusing Results
Use PCF data for customer engagement, tenders, ESG reporting, or strategic product decisions.
From PCF to LCA: Considering Additional Environmental Impacts
In addition to the product carbon footprint, other environmental impacts can be analyzed as needed—for example, water consumption, acidification, eutrophication, or toxicity.
This allows the CO₂e focus to be expanded to include additional impact dimensions as needed and integrated with life cycle assessment analyses.
Software with technical support
Substain is more than just a tool. Behind the software is a team of ESG, carbon management, and life-cycle experts who have been supporting companies with carbon footprint assessments, product data, and reporting for over 10 years.
For you, this means that you’ll not only receive software that’s ready to use, but also expert support with setup, data structure, methodology, and application.
What is a product carbon footprint?
A product carbon footprint shows the greenhouse gas emissions generated throughout a product's life cycle—for example, from raw materials, production, transportation, use, or disposal.
The PCF lays the groundwork for better understanding emissions at the product level, identifying opportunities for reduction, and providing information for customers, requests for proposals, or internal decisions.
Which life cycle phases can be considered?
Cradle-to-Gate
An overview from raw material extraction to the factory gate.
Cradle-to-Grave
Consideration of the entire life cycle—including use and disposal.
Additional System Limitations
Depending on the product, industry, and requirements, additional accounting thresholds may be appropriate.
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