Product Carbon Footprint ISO 14067: A Guide for Exporters

What is a product carbon footprint under ISO 14067?

A product carbon footprint (PCF, called CFP in the standard) is the sum of the greenhouse gas emissions and removals linked to a product, expressed in CO2 equivalent per unit of product. ISO 14067 sets the method for quantifying it, over the whole life cycle or only part of it.

The current standard is ISO 14067:2018 — Greenhouse gases — Carbon footprint of products — Requirements and guidelines for quantification, published in August 2018 by committee ISO/TC 207/SC 7. It replaced the technical specification ISO/TS 14067:2013, now withdrawn. According to its abstract on iso.org, read on 11 November 2026:

• it specifies principles, requirements and guidelines for quantifying and reporting the carbon footprint of a product, consistently with the life cycle assessment standards ISO 14040 and ISO 14044;
• it also sets requirements for a partial carbon footprint, limited to part of the life cycle;
• it addresses a single impact category: climate change;
• carbon offsetting and the communication of the footprint are outside its scope.

So ISO 14067 tells you how to calculate a robust figure, not how to display it on a pack or in a tender: communication falls under other standards and, in Europe, under consumer law.

Is the standard up to date?

Yes. iso.org states that ISO 14067:2018 was last reviewed and confirmed in 2024; at the same time, it is being revised. The draft ISO/WD 14067.2, second edition, was at stage 20.60 (close of comment period) on iso.org on 11 November 2026. The 2018 edition is the one to apply and cite; no content or publication date for the next edition has been announced.

Which life cycle assessment standards does a PCF rest on?

On ISO 14040, which sets the principles and framework of life cycle assessment (LCA), and ISO 14044, which sets its requirements. ISO 14067 applies that approach to climate change only.

The current editions, read on iso.org on 11 November 2026:

• ISO 14040:2006 — Environmental management — Life cycle assessment — Principles and framework (which replaced ISO 14040:1997), supplemented by ISO 14040:2006/Amd 1:2020;
• ISO 14044:2006 — Environmental management — Life cycle assessment — Requirements and guidelines, supplemented by ISO 14044:2006/Amd 1:2017 and ISO 14044:2006/Amd 2:2020.

Both were reviewed and confirmed in 2022. According to their official abstracts, they cover four phases that also structure a carbon footprint study: goal and scope definition, life cycle inventory (flows of materials, energy, transport and waste), impact assessment (here, conversion to CO2 equivalent) and interpretation. They also deal with reporting and critical review, an independent check that buyers increasingly expect once a result leaves the company.

If your customer asks for “an LCA” rather than “a carbon footprint”, the question is different: an LCA can cover water, resources or toxicity. Clarify the request before scoping the work.

How is a product carbon footprint calculated, step by step?

Through six decisions you should write down before collecting any data: the unit, the life cycle scope, the system boundary, allocation, data sources and any sector rules. Most gaps between two footprints of the “same” product come from these choices, not from the arithmetic.

Functional unit or declared unit?

The functional unit describes the function the product delivers (“packaging one litre of oil over its shelf life”). The declared unit is a plain physical quantity (one tonne of cement, a thousand cans, one kilogram of pellets), used when the final use is unknown, typically for a partial footprint. A metal can maker near Casablanca supplying several canneries will work with a declared unit: it does not know what each customer will put in its cans.

Cradle-to-gate or cradle-to-grave?

The scope states which life cycle stages are counted.

Cradle-to-gate is the most common case for a Moroccan or African exporter: your customer builds your result into its own calculation and expects a figure specific to your plant.

Where does the system boundary sit?

The boundary lists included and excluded processes: plant, subcontractors, support services, shipping packaging, waste. Every exclusion must be written down and justified; a silent exclusion is the first thing a verifier or a buyer will spot.

How do you split emissions between products made on the same site?

That is allocation. An olive oil mill that sells its pomace, a fertiliser plant running several grades on the same lines, a plastics converter switching between references: the site’s energy and emissions have to be shared between products. The rule you choose (mass, energy, economic value, line metering) changes the result; it must be written, justified, applied consistently from year to year and tested for sensitivity. Where a sector rule exists, it decides.

Primary or secondary data?

Primary data are measured at your site or your suppliers’: electricity and fuel invoices, workshop meters, bills of materials, yields, waste. Secondary data come from documented LCA databases, public or licensed, for what you do not measure (producing a resin, a steel grade, a farm input). Measure first what weighs most, and record the source, version and year of every secondary dataset. If your customer works with the PEF method, it may ask for the “Environmental Footprint-compliant” datasets promoted by Recommendation (EU) 2021/2279.

Three topics need a written rule because reviewers often challenge them: purchased electricity, biogenic carbon (wood, paper, agricultural products) and land use change. This article deliberately gives no emission factor figures: each factor must come from a documented, dated source.

How should transport be counted?

ISO 14083:2023 — Greenhouse gases — Quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions arising from transport chain operations establishes a common methodology for passenger and freight transport chains. Published in March 2023, it replaced the workshop agreement IWA 16:2015. Ask your carriers for compatible data: tonnages, distances, modes and, where possible, their own emission intensities.

Are there rules specific to your product category?

Often, yes. EPD programmes publish product category rules (PCR) that fix the unit, scope and some assumptions for a product family. Recommendation (EU) 2021/2279 defines PEFCRs and states that, where one exists, it should be used. For construction products in Europe, EN 15804 plays that role. Check this first: it can change the whole study design.

Product footprint, corporate inventory, CBAM embedded emissions: what is the difference?

They are three separate calculations that share data but not methods. The corporate inventory measures the company over a year, the product footprint measures one unit of product over its life cycle, and the CBAM measures an installation’s emissions attributed to each good imported into the EU.

Three practical consequences:

• Dividing your corporate inventory by your output does not give a product footprint; it gives an intensity ratio. The inventory remains an excellent starting point: see our carbon footprint to ISO 14064 page and our ISO 14064-1 requirements guide. ISO 14064-1:2018 is also under revision (draft ISO/WD 14064-1.2 at stage 20.60 on iso.org on 11 November 2026); the 2018 edition remains current.
• A product footprint does not replace CBAM data. If you export cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, hydrogen or electricity to the EU, your importer needs embedded emissions calculated with the EU method, in its definitive period since 1 January 2026: see CBAM for exporters.
• All three draw on the same meters. Well-measured energy use per workshop feeds scopes 1 and 2, PCF allocation and, for a covered installation, the CBAM calculation. Organising data collection once is where the real saving lies.

How do you communicate a product carbon footprint: partial footprint, EPD or PEF?

ISO 14067 stops at the calculation: to communicate, you must choose a framework. Between businesses, the study report or a verified partial footprint is often shared; for public, comparable communication, companies use an environmental product declaration or the EU PEF method.

Sharing the footprint with an industrial customer

This is the most common case. Your European customer builds your figure into its purchases (scope 3 category 1, “purchased goods and services”) or into its own product’s footprint. It expects the result, its unit, scope, data year, assumptions and, increasingly, independent verification. According to iso.org, ISO 14064-3:2019 applies to the verification of product greenhouse gas statements, as well as organisation and project statements.

Publishing an environmental product declaration (EPD)

An EPD is a multi-impact declaration based on LCA and published within a programme. The reference standard is now ISO 14025:2026 — Environmental statements and programmes for products — Environmental product declarations (EPDs) (formerly ISO 14025:2006, now withdrawn). According to its abstract on iso.org, this second edition, published in June 2026, sets principles and requirements for EPD programmes and their declarations, specifies the use of ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 to develop them, and leaves sector-specific provisions to other ISO documents built on its principles.

An EPD includes a climate change indicator but goes well beyond a carbon footprint. If your EPD cites the 2006 edition, ask the programme that registered it how it treats earlier declarations: iso.org shows no transition period.

Construction products: EN 15804+A2

In Europe, EPDs for construction products follow EN 15804:2012+A2:2019 (with its 2021 corrigendum), which sets the core product category rules for the sector and replaced EN 15804:2012+A1:2013. A Moroccan exporter of cement, ceramic tiles or aluminium profiles will meet it in European tenders. For cement, steel and aluminium, the same plant may have to produce both an EPD under EN 15804+A2 and CBAM embedded emissions: two separate calculations from the same site data.

The EU PEF method

Commission Recommendation (EU) 2021/2279 of 15 December 2021, published in Official Journal L 471 of 30 December 2021, which repeals Recommendation 2013/179/EU, recommends the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF) methods. Key points, read on EUR-Lex:

• PEF measures a product’s potential environmental impact over its life cycle, not only its climate impact;
• where a PEFCR exists for your product category, it should be used;
• PEF studies disclosed to third parties must be verified;
• the recommendation does not apply where binding EU legislation sets its own calculation method.

An ISO 14067 footprint is therefore not a PEF study. When a customer mentions PEF, ask whether it wants the full study or only the climate indicator calculated under PEF rules.

Which climate claims are still possible for a product sold in Europe?

Only claims based on real, demonstrable impacts. Since 27 September 2026, EU unfair commercial practices law bans offset-based neutrality claims about products and tightly frames environmental claims made to EU consumers.

Directive (EU) 2024/825 of 28 February 2024, which amends Directives 2005/29/EC and 2011/83/EU to empower consumers for the green transition, applies from 27 September 2026 (Article 4, read on EUR-Lex on 11 November 2026). It adds to the practices banned in all circumstances (Annex I to Directive 2005/29/EC), among others:

• point 4c: claiming, based on the offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions, that a product has a neutral, reduced or positive impact on the environment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions;
• point 4b: making an environmental claim about the entire product when it concerns only one aspect of it;
• point 4a: making a generic environmental claim without being able to demonstrate recognised excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim.

Its recital 12 states that such claims should only be allowed when based on the actual life cycle impact of the product. A sound carbon footprint is therefore the basis of a defensible claim, never a licence to print “neutral”.

On the standards side, ISO 14021:2026 — Environmental statements and programmes for products — Self-declared environmental claims (formerly ISO 14021:2016, withdrawn with its 2021 amendment) has governed self-declared claims since June 2026, whether words, symbols or graphics, on the product, its packaging, in advertising or on digital platforms. Carbon neutrality falls under ISO 14068:2026 — Climate change management — Carbon neutrality (formerly ISO 14068-1:2023; according to iso.org, only the number and title changed), which requires a reduction plan first: see our ISO 14068 guide and our carbon neutrality ISO 14068 page.

Our position: reduce first, claim only what is proven, and have every claim aimed at EU consumers reviewed before it goes to print.

How should you answer a European customer’s PCF request?

By clarifying the request before calculating: which standard, which product, which scope, which unit, which data year and what level of verification. A supplier who asks these questions in the first exchange saves weeks and avoids redoing the study.

These requests often arrive inside an ESG questionnaire, alongside other sustainability data: see our page on CSRD, VSME and ESG questionnaires. For packaging, the footprint comes on top of the EU packaging regulation: see our PPWR guide for non-EU exporters.

Checklist: preparing a European customer’s product carbon footprint request

• Get the request in writing: required framework (ISO 14067, PEF, EPD under ISO 14025 or EN 15804+A2), products concerned, response format, deadline.
  
• Confirm the scope: cradle-to-gate (partial footprint) or cradle-to-grave.
  
• Check whether product category rules (PCR, PEFCR) or a sector standard apply.
  
• Set the functional or declared unit and the data year (twelve consecutive, documented months).
  
• Draw up the bill of materials: materials, components, packaging, quantities per unit.
  
• Gather site data: electricity and fuels per workshop, yields, scrap, waste.
  
• Write the allocation rule between products made on the same site and test its sensitivity.
  
• Ask the suppliers of the materials that weigh most for primary data.
  
• Collect inbound and outbound transport data compatible with ISO 14083:2023.
  
• Document every secondary dataset: database, version, year.
  
• Check whether the product falls under the CBAM: if so, plan the installation-level embedded emissions calculation too.
  
• Plan a critical review or third-party verification if the result leaves the company.
  
• Have every planned climate claim reviewed against Directive (EU) 2024/825 and ISO 14021:2026.
  
• Schedule updates: change of process, supplier or electricity supply.