Managing the carbon footprint of products: the contribution of the method composed of financial statements (MC3)

Abstract

Purpose Carbon footprints (CF) provide companies, customers, and other agents with information related to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the life cycle of products, identifying key points in the supply chain, potential risks, and opportunities of improvement. This paper briefly examines how the method composed of financial statements (MC3) (MC3, as coined from the name of the method in Spanish, i.e., método compuesto de las cuentas contables.) approaches to specific requirements related to the assessment of product GHG emissions, pointing out the contribution of this method to assessing and communicating the carbon footprint of products. Materials and methods The MC3 was developed between 2000 and 2002 by J. L. Doménech who designed a tool for assessing ecological and carbon footprint of organizations. Nowadays, MC3 is supported by the MultiUniversity Working Group on Corporative Footprint. One of the recent achievements of this group has been the development of MC3 for products carbon footprinting. The MC3 approach has been recognized by the Spanish Observatory for Sustainability as a valid methodology for assessing and reducing GHG emissions arising from companies under the frame of the Spanish GHG Voluntary Reduction Agreement. Results MC3 offers guidelines for assessing the CF of products. Guidelines include specific requirements for issues such as system boundaries, temporal boundaries, and goal setting. Information on specific issues such as emissions from land use change, capital goods or carbon storage clarifies the approach to be taken by organizations implementing product carbon footprinting. Discussion Consumers and organizations all over the world are interested in obtaining information regarding the carbon footprint of products they consume and produce, being needed further standardization of methods for carbon footprinting. However, it is difficult that one approach provides for optimal results in a wide range of situations. MC3 is one of the existing approaches to assess the CF of products. MC3 has been developed under the premise of being a simple and practical method. The role of markets as the main source of communicating CF information on products among the members of the supply chain is an important strength of the method. Conclusions MC3 provides for an internationally standardized method for the assessment of GHG emissions from the life cycle of products built on the LCA guidance and key principles of relevant approaches of the field of LCA. MC3 offers useful information for sustainable development, carbon management of organizations and sustainable consumption, being a flexible, transparent, and easy-toapply method.Keywords Carbon footprinting . GHG (greenhouse gas) assessment . LCA . MC3 (one of the existing approaches to assess the CF of products) . Supply chain Responsible editor:

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“…The use of input-output techniques to determine the CCF ), the Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 2050 (BSI 2008) or the compound method based on financial accounts (MC3) (Dome´nech, 2004, Carballo-Penela andDome´nech 2010) are some of the most relevant methodological approaches. Next, the method applied in this paper, the MC3, is described briefly.…”

“…This method has been improved through the co-operation with five Spanish universities, and the results of this work have been published in several papers (e.g. Maran˜on et al 2008, Carballo-Penela and Dome´nech, 2010, Coto-Milla´n et al 2010. Carballo-Penela (2009 has recently developed a method to estimate the CEF-CCF of goods and services along the supplier's chain, from the raw materials to the final consumer.…”

“…For the purpose of this work, it is more useful to stress the reasons which favour the use of MC3 at an organisation level (Dome´nech, 2007, Carballo-Penela andDome´nech 2010).…”

“…In practice, every company obtains the environmental information of the purchased goods/services from their suppliers. This fact makes possible the integration of the environmental information in the market in a practical way, thus avoiding high communication costs (Carballo-Penela and Dome´nech, 2010). …”

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