Significant concerns around climate change have brought into focus not only the importance of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for organisations as such, but also increasingly the impact on climate change of products.

Different attempts are emerging to quantify the climate impact, usually referred to as carbon footprint, of products.

The Swedish Environmental Management Council (SEMCo) has taken an initiative to meet the increasing markets demands on information about the impact on climate from products making use of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) into a single-issue approach called Climate Declarations.

A Climate Declaration is one part of an EPD and is based on international standards for Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) – ISO 14040 and 14044 – as well as for environmental declarations – ISO 14025. It covers all climate related information – e.g. the use of renewable and non-renewable resources and the climate impact from manufacturing, use, maintenance and waste handling expressed as global warming potential. A climate declaration also includes information about the organisation and the product.

The climate impact is reported separately from all life cycle stages as well as for the overall impact, which is an indication of the “total carbon footprint”. Climate declarations are specifically aimed at professionals within green procurement as the information is meant to be used for comparative purposes.

Climate declaration is also a trustworthy climate labelling concept and can be used as the main information source for a climate/carbon footprint label to be used on products and packaging materials, which make it a consumer-oriented information tool.

• Read more on climatedec.com