We published a method for attributing environmental burdens stage by stage
Our founders, Jonathan Wheeler and Candelaria Colombres, together with colleagues from UNT, CONICET and TU Wien, published “A stage-wise approach for burden attribution in LCA of multifunctional systems” in one of the leading journals in life cycle assessment.
The idea is to compute the footprint stage by stage, rather than applying a single global allocation rule. That makes it possible to trace how each burden propagates through internal flows and to check that the sum of the product footprints reconciles with the total system impact.
It is demonstrated on a sugarcane biorefinery producing sugar, ethanol and electricity. The result: an explicit allocation, aligned with ISO 14044 and easier to audit.
This line of research is part of the methodological basis of Emetrix.
Sources
Keep reading
Pectin in Tucumán: how much emissions are avoided by extracting it at source
Tucumán exports dried lemon peel to extract pectin in Europe. We calculate the emissions that would be avoided by extracting it in the province.
Read the articleEmetrix is PACT Conformant: what PACT is and why carbon transparency matters
Emetrix passed PACT's conformance tests. What PACT is, why supplier emissions matter, and how product footprints are exchanged between companies.
Read the articleWant to see how this maps onto your inventory?
Emetrix works out the pathway, your category and your emissions-intensive activities from your own data.