Analysis of Uncertainty Factors in Part-Specific Greenhouse Gas Accounting

Due to the ongoing climate crisis and the resulting targets of several countries, as well as the EU, manufacturing companies face the need to address and reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To calculate these emissions, the product carbon footprint (PCF) can be a helpful tool, both to come up with reduction measures internally as well as to communicate it externally as competitive advantage. However, the PCF is subject to uncertainty factors that hinder its use and need to be systematically assessed. For this reason, this paper first collects and clusters relevant uncertainty factors resulting from differences between accounting standards, but also from imprecisions within the standards. Subsequently, the PCF is determined in different scenarios of uncertainty factors, applied to an industrial case study. This is used to be able to put the deviation in the final results into perspective. Recommendations for action are finally derived from the analysis of the literature and the results of the use case.