Green products standard

The Carbon Trust has joined with the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (defra) and BSI British Standards to develop a standard method for measuring the embodied green house gas emissions in products and services along with their supply chains.

The aim of the project is to produce a Publicly Available Specification for the measurement of embodied greenhouse gases. This will allow specifiers and designers to select products based on their climate change impact over their life-cycle. By allowing specifiers to compare products, the government is relying on market forces to encourage manufacturers producing products with high embodied energy to reduce the life-cycle impact of their products.

The government says the standard is the first step towards an internationally agreed standard for measuring embodied green house gas emissions.

BSI British Standards will oversee the development of the standard using a methodology piloted by the Carbon Trust.

Environment Minister Ian Pearson said: “More and more, businesses are looking for ways to reduce their impact on the environment. To help them achieve that we need a reliable, consistent way to measure these impacts that businesses recognise, trust and understand”.