Product Carbon Footprints (PCF) vs. Product Environmental Footprints (PEF) – A Starters Guide

Businesses can’t exclude sustainability in their overall business strategy. Mainly because companies are under increasing pressure to measure, manage, analyze and communicate their environmental impact. 

While methods like Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) and Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) are frequently used in this context, they are often intertwined or confused. 

In this article we will try to clarify the differences between Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) and Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and explain why both are essential environmental methods for companies of all sizes. 

For a deeper understanding of the PCF and the PCF calculation, visit our article “Product Carbon Footprint (PCF): What It Is and How to Calculate It.”. 

What is a Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) 101

The Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) measures the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by a product throughout its lifecycle. Expressed in carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂e), it standardizes emissions from gasses like methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) for comparison.

Scope PCF

• The Product Carbon Footprint tracks emissions throughout the entire product lifecycle, from raw material extraction to end-of-life disposal.
• Focuses solely on climate change as an impact category, using Life Cycle Assessment methods to quantify GHG emissions.

By focusing on PCF calculation, companies can:

• Identify high-emission stages in the product lifecycle
• Benchmark emissions against industry standards
• Demonstrate compliance with regulatory frameworks like the EU’s CSRD or GHG Protocol Scope 3 (ESG) reporting. 

To understand how carbon footprints connect and differ from broader LCA methodologies, read our in-depth article: Understanding the Difference Between LCA and Carbon Footprint.

What is the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) 101 

The Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) offers a multi-dimensional view of a product, service or system’s environmental impact. 

The PEF offers a standardized approach to conducting Life Cycle Assessments, enabling a clear evaluation of environmental impacts. It helps prevent greenwashing by establishing a reliable and transparent framework, provided by the European Commission. It evaluates environmental impact categories such as water usage, depletion, and pollution, providing a comprehensive sustainability assessment for your product or service. 

An important sidenote is the existence of Product Category Rules (PCR) within the PEF methodology, called the Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules or PEFCR.   

The PEFCR further refines the PEF methodology by providing specific guidelines for specific product categories, also introduced by the European Commission. Some PEFCRs that already exist are the PEFCR Beer and the PEFCR detergents. To have a full overview of the different PEFCRs click here. 

Scope PEF 

• Encompasses 15+ life cycle assessment (LCA) impact categories, including:
  • Water consumption (e.g., liters used per unit).
  • Land use (e.g., impact of deforestation).
  • Air and soil pollution (e.g., toxic emissions from manufacturing).
  • Resource depletion (e.g., consumption of finite materials like rare earth elements).
  • …

Why does the PEF matter? 

1. Comprehensive sustainability management:
   Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) goes beyond climate impact, enabling businesses to analyze all aspects of sustainability across various LCA impact categories – not just climate change.
2. Ecodesign opportunities:
   By analyzing resource use and environmental hotspots, companies can adopt materials and processes that reduce overall impact. Because you are having a more overall picture of the environmental impacts.
3. Compliance and reporting:
   PEF follows the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and its standards, such as ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, providing credibility and guidelines for sustainability reporting and certifications.

Product Carbon footprints vs. Environmental footprints – its challenges & limitations 

While the PCF and PEF are both environmental assessment methods and key methods  for sustainability management. Implementing these methodologies doesn’t come without challenges. Companies must take in account possible hurdles to unlock the full potential of these methodologies. Underneath, we go over some of the possible hurdles. 

Data Availability: the basis of accurate environmental assessments

Both PCF and PEF analysis depend on the accessibility and quality of your data. Overcoming this can be a complex task for organizations of all different sizes. 

The Critical Role of data in Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) analysis

• Data on energy consumption, material usage, and transportation logistics.
• Gathering reliable Scope 3 emissions data from suppliers and downstream partners is a common challenge for companies.
• When primary data isn’t available, businesses rely on secondary sources or databases like ecoinvent, which is less accurate than your own primary data.

Data requirements for Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) analysis

• The broader scope adds to data collection challenges. Aside from GHG emissions, companies must gather information on water use, land use, and resource extraction, often from complex global supply chains.
• The absence of industry-specific benchmarks for PEF categories (e.g. the Product Environmental Footprint Category rules) makes it harder to interpret results or pinpoint meaningful improvement opportunities.

Using LCA platforms or PCF software, like Pilario, which offers industry-certified LCA models, simplifies the data collection process and guarantees uniformity. Especially when some of those LCA models are even PEFCR compliant. 

Complexity: managing broader scopes

PCF assessments are more or less straightforward, as they focus solely on climate-related impacts. However, even here, challenges can occur when gathering emissions across lifecycle stages or choosing the right boundaries (e.g., cradle-to-gate vs. cradle-to-grave).

PEF assessments require evaluating multiple environmental impact categories, often with trade-offs between them. For example, reducing carbon emissions may increase water use. Or minimizing packaging waste could lead to higher energy consumption during production.

The broader the scope, the harder it is to streamline processes and deliver actionable insights.

A solution here can be by simplifying the complexity: start small and focus on PCF initially, and transition to full-scale PEF assessments as you gain experience and confidence.

Conclusion: Product environmental footprint vs Product carbon footprint – where to start ?

As of now we can state that sustainability is no longer a competitive edge – it needs to be a cornerstone in your business strategy today. Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) and Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) assessments are both key methods for measuring and improving your product’s environmental footprint. 

In a nutshell, the difference between PCF and PEF lies in their focus, scope and the environmental impact categories they cover. 

The PCF uniquely focuses on climate change by calculating greenhouse gas emissions (expressed in carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂e)), to calculate carbon footprints with precision. 

On the other hand, the PEF takes a broader approach, evaluating multiple environmental impact categories to support more universal sustainability strategies and assessments. 

We think that starting your product’s environmental impact analysis with a PCF calculation, is a smart first step. It offers a clear focus and straightforward way to gain insights on your product portfolio and meeting regulatory requirements.

Afterwards, expanding to PEF builds on this foundation, unlocking innovation and eco-design opportunities. By integrating both methodologies into their sustainability strategies, businesses can drive long-term environmental impact analysis, meet stakeholder expectations, and stay ahead of evolving regulations. 

How software can help for your PEF and PCF calculations 

As mentioned, the calculation of PEFs and PCFs comes with its challenges and limitations, with obtaining accurate product data being one of the key hurdles. 

Luckily there’re a range of different solutions that can help you along the way. Like Pilario: its LCA platform empowers businesses to tackle sustainability challenges head-on. Whether it’s your first PCF calculation or you’re conducting an LCA on your whole product portfolio, Pilario helps centralize data, simplify complexity, unlock actionable insights and guide you along the way. 

Ready to take control of your product’s environmental impact? With Pilario, you can streamline PCF and PEF calculations, overcome data challenges, and unlock actionable insights with ease. Book a personalized demo today to see how Pilario simplifies sustainability for your business.