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It's great to see new services that help consumers make choices about the products they buy. However, without details of the methodology being used to determine
by dmytton 7y ago
It's great to see new services that help consumers make choices about the products they buy. However, without details of the methodology being used to determine the carbon footprint, there is no way to gauge the accuracy of the service. These types of analysis are often quite inaccurate.
The Bloomberg article is paywalled. Their press release at https://enfuce.com/enfuce-launched-new-sustainability-service/ https://enfuce.com/enfuce-launched-new-sustainability-servic... says:
> My Carbon Action is based on a validated calculation method called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which has been developed together with D-mat, a Finnish consultancy experienced in lifestyle carbon and material footprint calculations. The calculation takes into account the environmental impacts of a product’s entire lifecycle from raw-material extraction, manufacturing and transport to use and disposal.
This is good but it doesn't actually say what the "validated" LCA is.
Consumer supply chains are notoriously complex. You need details of every element of the supply chain for every product to be able to properly calculate the LCA. This is why we get things like the assumption that local produce always has lower carbon emissions, which isn't always true[1], or switching from plastic bags to organic cotton totes, which are worse on many environmental measures[2].
This is a very complex area[3] and Enfuce need to release their methodology to demonstrate that their data is accurate. Lack of transparency of data is a major problem with sustainability claims of all kinds, something I wrote about this week at https://davidmytton.blog/sustainability-doesnt-work-without-transparency/ https://davidmytton.blog/sustainability-doesnt-work-without-...
[1] https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7679.2009.00445.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7679.2009.00445.x
[2] https://www2.mst.dk/Udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf https://www2.mst.dk/Udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-...
[3] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10806-015-9591-6 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10806-015-9591-6
- RobinL 7y agoDo you have any recommendations for good sources of data on energy embodied in consumer goods? I've been making a little calculator but have foubd it almost impossible to find trustworthy sources of evidence on this https://robinl.github.io/robinlinacre/energy-usage https://robinl.github.io/robinlinacre/energy-usage
- dmytton 7y agoYou need to get it from the vendor so it's really up to them if they publish LCAs for their products. Apple and Microsoft do for their hardware but I've not seen many other companies do so. E.g. https://www.apple.com/euro/environment/pdf/a/generic/products/notebooks/13-inch_MacBookAir_w_Retina_PER_June2019.pdf https://www.apple.com/euro/environment/pdf/a/generic/product... and https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55974 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=559...
- RobinL 7y agoThanks!