Product carbon footprints
ISO 14067 and the PACT Methodology v3.0 - a defensive number you can use
What is a product carbon footprint?
A product carbon footprint (PCF) is the quantified greenhouse gas emissions of one specific product, calculated according to ISO 14067 and consistent with ISO 14040/44 life cycle assessment principles. It is expressed in kg CO₂e per declared unit, broken down by life cycle stage, and built to be shared with customers, regulators and auditors.
A PCF is not an LCA. It is the climate subset of one - a single indicator, where a full LCA covers water, land use, toxicity, eutrophication and more. It is not an EPD, which is a verified, publicly registered declaration governed by Product Category Rules. Furthermore, a PCF is not a company footprint: Scope 1, 2 and 3 describe your organisation, a PCF describes one product.
It is also not permanent. Buyers want current, specific data, so a PCF is recalculated as your inputs change.
Is PACT a certification or a label?
Neither. The Partnership for Carbon Transparency (PACT), hosted by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, is two things: a methodology that tightens how a cradle-to-gate PCF is calculated, and an open API specification for moving that footprint between trading partners in a machine-readable format.
There is no consumer label. No on-pack mark. No central platform you submit data to - PACT is explicitly peer-to-peer, and WBCSD states plainly that it "does not provide any certifications for aligning with the standard." The only status that exists is PACT Conformant, it applies to software, it is free and self-tested, and it verifies only that data moves correctly. It says nothing about whether the number is any good.
That last point is the whole reason to work with an LCA consultancy rather than a tool. Conformance certifies the plumbing. Rigour, primary data and defensible methodology are what make a footprint survive contact with your customer's auditor.
Why this matters now
Your customers are being assured. AASB S2 made climate-related disclosure mandatory in Australia from January 2025, with Scope 3 reporting phased in from 30 June 2027 for the first group and independently assured. For most manufacturers, purchased goods and services dominate that number. The only way your customer improves their Scope 3 figure is by getting real data from you.
Europe is already asking. CSRD pulls Scope 3 data out of supply chains, including from Australian suppliers who aren't in scope themselves. CBAM entered its definitive period on 1 January 2026, and verified actual emissions data avoids deliberately conservative default values. The EU's Digital Product Passport registry went live on 20 July 2026, with carbon footprint among the data it can require.
The Australian voluntary landscape is changing. The Government announced in July 2026 that it is closing Climate Active certification. Organisations that built their carbon story on a certificate now need something that stands on its own - a defensible number, documented well enough that someone else's auditor accepts it.
Design decides most of it anyway. Somewhere between 70 and 90 per cent of a product's emissions are locked in before it leaves the design stage - in the materials specified, the suppliers chosen, the transport designed in. A PCF is the tool that shows a design team what actually matters.
PCF - outputs
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in kg CO₂e per declared unit, broken down by life cycle stage
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PACT v3.0 requires - fossil, biogenic, biogenic carbon content, land use change, land management and the rest, rather than a single bundled figure
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showing how much of the footprint rests on real supplier data
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across technology, time and geography, scored one to five and weighted by emission contribution
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so the footprint can be sent to a customer's system with its context intact
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covering allocation rules, cut-off, IPCC characterisation factors and reference period — the ISO 14067 Section 7 mandatory reporting fields
Our PCF services
Scope and boundary setting:
We agree the declared unit, the cradle-to-gate boundary, the reference period and the production locations, and identify any product- or sector-specific rules that take precedence. Where you're serving more than one obligation — AASB S2, CBAM, a customer's data request - we scope once for all of them.Primary data collection:
We work with your operations and suppliers to gather measured data, tagging each input as primary or secondary. This stage determines your Primary Data Share, and it is where the difference between a credible and a dismissible footprint is made.Modelling:
We build the footprint in SimaPro using ISO 14040/44 and ISO 14067 methodology, drawing on AusLCI and ecoinvent where primary data isn't available, and applying the PACT v3.0 allocation hierarchy.Reporting and data exchange:
You receive the report, the calculation file and the PACT-conformant data file, with Primary Data Share and data quality ratings reported up front rather than buried in an appendix.Review and certification:
Where your customer or a regulator requires it, we arrange or conduct independent critical review. PACT's roadmap moves from verifying individual footprints to verifying the calculation model behind them between 2025 and 2030 - we can prepare you for either.
FAQs
Can we say we are “PACT certified”?
No, and you shouldn't. WBCSD is explicit that no such status exists - it uses "PACT Conformant" for software that implements the data exchange specification correctly, and nothing else. What you can legitimately say is that your product carbon footprint was calculated in accordance with ISO 14067 and the PACT Methodology v3.0, and independently reviewed. That is a stronger claim than a badge, because it describes what was actually done.
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Is there a PACT label we can put on our product?
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No. PACT is a business-to-business data standard, not a consumer-facing scheme. If you need something a customer can see, an EPD or a Carbon Trust label is the route. If you need something your customer's procurement and sustainability teams can use, that's a PCF.
Can a PCF support a carbon neutral claim?
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No. ISO 14067 governs quantification only; claims and labels fall under ISO 14026. The PACT Methodology states directly that it "is not designed to be used for quantifying GHG reductions from offsets, credits, or claims of carbon neutrality." Treating a footprint as licence for a neutrality claim is a common and expensive mistake.
What happens to our Climate Active certification?
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The Government announced in July 2026 that it is closing the scheme, with certification reported to end 30 June 2027. Products already carrying the mark can be sold through. We can review what your certification was doing commercially and where a product carbon footprint, an EPD, or a reduction-based claim replaces it.