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Cradle to Gate and Cradle to Grave:

Difference between the two approaches in the Product Carbon Footprint (PCF)

Cradle to Gate and Cradle to Grave are the two most commonly used approaches for calculating PCF. Understand the differences and areas of application of both approaches and their influence on the calculation of the Product Carbon Footprint (PCF).

|  June 22, 2024

🕓 Reading time 4 minutes

Cradle to Gate and Cradle to Grace LCA PCF

1. What is the Cradle to Gate approach to the Product Carbon Footprint (PCF)?

 

The Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) quantifies the total greenhouse gas emissions generated during the life cycle of a product.

(You can learn more about PCF in this article: What is a PCF? | How companies use the Product Carbon Footprint

The Cradle to Gate approach considers the life cycle of a product from raw material extraction to the point at which the product leaves the manufacturer's factory gate. This approach focuses on the manufacturing phase.

Cradle to Gate excludes the use and disposal phases.

 

Advantages of the Cradle to Gate approach

  • Focus on production: Companies can specifically analyze and optimize the environmental impacts of their production processes.
  • Easier data collection: Since only the manufacturing phase is considered, data collection is often less complex.
  • Comparability: Enables comparison of environmental performance between different production processes and manufacturers.
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2. What is the cradle to grave approach to a PCF?

 

The Cradle to Grave-approach extends the consideration to the entire life cycle of a product, including the use and disposal phase.

This enables a complete assessment of environmental impacts from production to final disposal.

Advantages of the Cradle to Grave approach

  • Comprehensive assessment: Covers all phases of the life cycle and provides a complete picture of environmental impacts.
  • Identification of optimization potential: By considering the entire life cycle, optimization potential in use and disposal can be identified.
  • Taking responsibility: Promotes the manufacturer's holistic responsibility for the product, even beyond its useful life.

3. Comparison of both approaches for the PCF

 

System boundaries

  • Cradle to Gate: Limited to raw material extraction and manufacturing processes to the factory gate.
  • Cradle to Grave: Includes the entire life cycle, including use and disposal.

Data requirements

  • Cradle to Gate: Requires detailed data on raw materials and production processes.
  • Cradle to Grave: Requires additional data for the use, maintenance and disposal of the product.
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Areas of application

  • Cradle to Gate: Useful for manufacturers who want to improve and compare their production processes.
  • Cradle to Grave: Suitable for a comprehensive emissions assessment and for products where the use and disposal phases represent significant environmental impacts.

 

The choice between Cradle to Gate and Cradle to Grave to calculate the Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) depends on the specific goals and requirements of the company.

While Cradle to Gate enables a focused analysis of the manufacturing processes, Cradle to Grave a comprehensive assessment of the environmental impacts across a product's entire life cycle. Both approaches play an important role in developing sustainable products and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

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    When it comes to sustainability or ecological viability, climate change and human influence on it are central, as in hardly any other area can environmental impacts be measured and documented so well with figures. The indicator here is anthropogenic emissions, i.e., greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans that contribute to global warming.

    What does this mean in the context of sustainable business? Every company should keep its greenhouse gas emissions – which are unavoidable in the provision of business services – as low as possible. Sustainable business cannot be achieved at the push of a button, but a continuous optimization process based on ecological indicators is the crucial approach.

    By recording the greenhouse gas emissions generated by your company, product, or service, you can identify potential for emission reduction. This enables you to optimize your processes and also save costs. You communicate to your customers and suppliers that you take responsibility for the emissions for which you are responsible. This allows you to build trust and adapt to the requirements of your business partners.

    Acting now is worthwhile

    Knowing your emissions will prepare you for predictable, more stringent regulatory requirements, such as increasing greenhouse gas emissions taxes or the mandatory implementation of investment-intensive measures. Incorporating this component into your corporate risk management is essential in the long term.

    Due to the ongoing social demand for Climate protection, even the European Central Bank under Christine Lagarde has now taken the inevitable course of giving capital preferential treatment to companies that can demonstrably Climate protection The same trend is evident in the capital flow of large asset managers, such as BlackRock. Their chairman, Larry Fink, wrote in a letter to his CEOs that companies that do not address environmental issues seriously and transparently are no longer viable and will therefore no longer be invested in.

    Climate protection Therefore, operating your company professionally and verifiably is inevitable in the near future. If your company is among the first to address this situation, you will establish a pioneering effect that prepares you for the foreseeable legal requirements, results in lower capital costs in the long term, and guarantees market advantages!

    ACTING NOW IS WORTH IT

    When it comes to sustainability or ecological viability, climate change and human influence on it are central, as in hardly any other area can environmental impacts be measured and documented so well with figures. The indicator here is anthropogenic emissions, i.e., greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans that contribute to global warming.

    What does this mean in the context of sustainable business? Every company should keep its greenhouse gas emissions – which are unavoidable in the provision of business services – as low as possible. Sustainable business cannot be achieved at the push of a button, but a continuous optimization process based on ecological indicators is the crucial approach.

    By recording the greenhouse gas emissions generated by your company, product, or service, you can identify potential for emission reduction. This enables you to optimize your processes and also save costs. You communicate to your customers and suppliers that you take responsibility for the emissions for which you are responsible. This allows you to build trust and adapt to the requirements of your business partners.

    Acting now is worthwhile

    Knowing your emissions will prepare you for predictable, more stringent regulatory requirements, such as increasing greenhouse gas emissions taxes or the mandatory implementation of investment-intensive measures. Incorporating this component into your corporate risk management is essential in the long term.

    Due to the ongoing social demand for Climate protection, even the European Central Bank under Christine Lagarde has now taken the inevitable course of giving capital preferential treatment to companies that can demonstrably Climate protection The same trend is evident in the capital flow of large asset managers, such as BlackRock. Their chairman, Larry Fink, wrote in a letter to his CEOs that companies that do not address environmental issues seriously and transparently are no longer viable and will therefore no longer be invested in.

    Climate protection Therefore, operating your company professionally and verifiably is inevitable in the near future. If your company is among the first to address this situation, you will establish a pioneering effect that prepares you for the foreseeable legal requirements, results in lower capital costs in the long term, and guarantees market advantages!

    ACTING NOW IS WORTH IT

    When it comes to sustainability or ecological viability, climate change and human influence on it are central, as in hardly any other area can environmental impacts be measured and documented so well with figures. The indicator here is anthropogenic emissions, i.e., greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans that contribute to global warming.

    What does this mean in the context of sustainable business? Every company should keep its greenhouse gas emissions – which are unavoidable in the provision of business services – as low as possible. Sustainable business cannot be achieved at the push of a button, but a continuous optimization process based on ecological indicators is the crucial approach.

    By recording the greenhouse gas emissions generated by your company, product, or service, you can identify potential for emission reduction. This enables you to optimize your processes and also save costs. You communicate to your customers and suppliers that you take responsibility for the emissions for which you are responsible. This allows you to build trust and adapt to the requirements of your business partners.

    Acting now is worthwhile

    Knowing your emissions will prepare you for predictable, more stringent regulatory requirements, such as increasing greenhouse gas emissions taxes or the mandatory implementation of investment-intensive measures. Incorporating this component into your corporate risk management is essential in the long term.

    Due to the ongoing social demand for Climate protection, even the European Central Bank under Christine Lagarde has now taken the inevitable course of giving capital preferential treatment to companies that can demonstrably Climate protection The same trend is evident in the capital flow of large asset managers, such as BlackRock. Their chairman, Larry Fink, wrote in a letter to his CEOs that companies that do not address environmental issues seriously and transparently are no longer viable and will therefore no longer be invested in.

    Climate protection Therefore, operating your company professionally and verifiably is inevitable in the near future. If your company is among the first to address this situation, you will establish a pioneering effect that prepares you for the foreseeable legal requirements, results in lower capital costs in the long term, and guarantees market advantages!

    ACTING NOW IS WORTH IT

    When it comes to sustainability or ecological viability, climate change and human influence on it are central, as in hardly any other area can environmental impacts be measured and documented so well with figures. The indicator here is anthropogenic emissions, i.e., greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans that contribute to global warming.

    What does this mean in the context of sustainable business? Every company should keep its greenhouse gas emissions – which are unavoidable in the provision of business services – as low as possible. Sustainable business cannot be achieved at the push of a button, but a continuous optimization process based on ecological indicators is the crucial approach.

    By recording the greenhouse gas emissions generated by your company, product, or service, you can identify potential for emission reduction. This enables you to optimize your processes and also save costs. You communicate to your customers and suppliers that you take responsibility for the emissions for which you are responsible. This allows you to build trust and adapt to the requirements of your business partners.

    Acting now is worthwhile

    Knowing your emissions will prepare you for predictable, more stringent regulatory requirements, such as increasing greenhouse gas emissions taxes or the mandatory implementation of investment-intensive measures. Incorporating this component into your corporate risk management is essential in the long term.

    Due to the ongoing social demand for Climate protection, even the European Central Bank under Christine Lagarde has now taken the inevitable course of giving capital preferential treatment to companies that can demonstrably Climate protection The same trend is evident in the capital flow of large asset managers, such as BlackRock. Their chairman, Larry Fink, wrote in a letter to his CEOs that companies that do not address environmental issues seriously and transparently are no longer viable and will therefore no longer be invested in.

    Climate protection Therefore, operating your company professionally and verifiably is inevitable in the near future. If your company is among the first to address this situation, you will establish a pioneering effect that prepares you for the foreseeable legal requirements, results in lower capital costs in the long term, and guarantees market advantages!

    ACTING NOW IS WORTH IT

    When it comes to sustainability or ecological viability, climate change and human influence on it are central, as in hardly any other area can environmental impacts be measured and documented so well with figures. The indicator here is anthropogenic emissions, i.e., greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans that contribute to global warming.

    What does this mean in the context of sustainable business? Every company should keep its greenhouse gas emissions – which are unavoidable in the provision of business services – as low as possible. Sustainable business cannot be achieved at the push of a button, but a continuous optimization process based on ecological indicators is the crucial approach.

    By recording the greenhouse gas emissions generated by your company, product, or service, you can identify potential for emission reduction. This enables you to optimize your processes and also save costs. You communicate to your customers and suppliers that you take responsibility for the emissions for which you are responsible. This allows you to build trust and adapt to the requirements of your business partners.

    Acting now is worthwhile

    Knowing your emissions will prepare you for predictable, more stringent regulatory requirements, such as increasing greenhouse gas emissions taxes or the mandatory implementation of investment-intensive measures. Incorporating this component into your corporate risk management is essential in the long term.

    Due to the ongoing social demand for Climate protection, even the European Central Bank under Christine Lagarde has now taken the inevitable course of giving capital preferential treatment to companies that can demonstrably Climate protection The same trend is evident in the capital flow of large asset managers, such as BlackRock. Their chairman, Larry Fink, wrote in a letter to his CEOs that companies that do not address environmental issues seriously and transparently are no longer viable and will therefore no longer be invested in.

    Climate protection Therefore, operating your company professionally and verifiably is inevitable in the near future. If your company is among the first to address this situation, you will establish a pioneering effect that prepares you for the foreseeable legal requirements, results in lower capital costs in the long term, and guarantees market advantages!

    ACTING NOW IS WORTH IT

    When it comes to sustainability or ecological viability, climate change and human influence on it are central, as in hardly any other area can environmental impacts be measured and documented so well with figures. The indicator here is anthropogenic emissions, i.e., greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans that contribute to global warming.

    What does this mean in the context of sustainable business? Every company should keep its greenhouse gas emissions – which are unavoidable in the provision of business services – as low as possible. Sustainable business cannot be achieved at the push of a button, but a continuous optimization process based on ecological indicators is the crucial approach.

    By recording the greenhouse gas emissions generated by your company, product, or service, you can identify potential for emission reduction. This enables you to optimize your processes and also save costs. You communicate to your customers and suppliers that you take responsibility for the emissions for which you are responsible. This allows you to build trust and adapt to the requirements of your business partners.

    Acting now is worthwhile

    Knowing your emissions will prepare you for predictable, more stringent regulatory requirements, such as increasing greenhouse gas emissions taxes or the mandatory implementation of investment-intensive measures. Incorporating this component into your corporate risk management is essential in the long term.

    Due to the ongoing social demand for Climate protection, even the European Central Bank under Christine Lagarde has now taken the inevitable course of giving capital preferential treatment to companies that can demonstrably Climate protection The same trend is evident in the capital flow of large asset managers, such as BlackRock. Their chairman, Larry Fink, wrote in a letter to his CEOs that companies that do not address environmental issues seriously and transparently are no longer viable and will therefore no longer be invested in.

    Climate protection Therefore, operating your company professionally and verifiably is inevitable in the near future. If your company is among the first to address this situation, you will establish a pioneering effect that prepares you for the foreseeable legal requirements, results in lower capital costs in the long term, and guarantees market advantages!

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