European Commission working on product environmental footprint guide

The commission has released a document describing the draft, final methodology for the calculation of a Product Environmental Footprint (PEF). 

For more information regarding the PEF see the commission’s communications document regarding the methodology here: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eussd/pdf/footprint/PEF%20methodology%20final%20draft.pdf

 

RECS International was made aware of the following excerpts from the above document:

“ 5.4.8 Accounting for Electricity Use (including Use of Renewable Energy)

Electricity from the grid consumed upstream or within the defined PEF boundary shall be modelled as precisely as possible giving preference to supplier-specific data. If (part of) the electricity is renewable it is important that no double counting occurs. Therefore the supplier shall guarantee that the renewable electricity supplied to the organisation to produce the product is effectively the supplied energy and that it is not put into the grid to be used by other consumers (e.g., Guarantee of Origin for production of renewable electricity69).

REQUIREMENT FOR PEF STUDIES

For electricity from the grid consumed upstream or within the defined PEF boundary, supplier-specific data shall be used if available. If supplier-specific data is not available,  country-specific consumption-mix data shall be used of the country in which the life cycle stages occur. For electricity consumed during the use stage of products, the energy mix shall reflect ratios of sales between countries or regions. Where such data are not available, the average EU consumption mix, or otherwise most representative mix, shall be used. It shall be guaranteed that the renewable electricity (and associated impacts) from the grid consumed upstream or within the defined PEF boundary is not double counted. A statement of the supplier shall be included as an annex to the PEF report, guaranteeing that the electricity supplied is effectively generated using renewable sources and is not sold to any other organization.

69European Union 2009: DIRECTIVE 2009/28/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND COUNCIL of 23 April 2009 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources and amending and subsequently repealing Directives 2001/77/EC and 2003/30/EC, Official Journal of the European Union.”