The Carbon Trust has announced that it is the first organisation to certify to the new product lifecycle standard released yesterday by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
The trust says it will provide the option for its customers to use the new Product Life Cycle standard and to display the internationally recognised Carbon Label, in conjunction with their use of the trust’s Footprint Expert software for product carbon footprint assessments.
The U.K. based, non-profit standard-setter, adviser and financier said its new service builds upon Carbon Trust Certification’s extensive experience of product carbon footprinting around 5,000 products since 2008. The Carbon Trust will continue to certify products to the existing carbon footprint standard, PAS 2050, against which many brands, such as Walkers Crisps, Kingsmill and Silver Spoon, have achieved year-on-year carbon emissions reductions.
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol, a joint initiative between WRI and WBCSD, yesterday published the new product standard alongside the Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) standard, which guides companies on how to prepare and publicly report a GHG emissions inventory that includes indirect emissions resulting from value chain activities.
The Carbon Trust was a member of the steering groups for WRI’s Product and Scope 3 Protocols, as well as providing support to the WRI Working Group Process. The trust says this ensured not only that the Carbon Trust's practical knowledge of standardisation was available to the WRI process, but also supported the wider harmonisation of international approaches to carbon footprinting.
In a pilot, Carbon Trust Certification has already been working to certify the product carbon footprints of three organisations to the pre-launch version of the WRI/WBCSD standard:
Carbon Trust Advisory will be working in partnership with WRI/WBCSD to produce product rules and sector guidance to interpret these standards for companies.
BusinessGreen has reported that the new standards present a big financial opportunity for environmental services firms in the U.K.
Carbon Trust Certification director Harry Morrison said the standards will allow British certification companies to expand globally.
Last week Carbon Trust Advisory released a study showing that half of multinational companies plan to select suppliers based on carbon performance.. The research said that 29 percent of suppliers are likely to lose their places on green supply chains if they do not have adequate performance records on carbon.
