Following the Sustainable Consumption and Production Action Plan (2008), the European Commission coordinates the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF) project to develop common methods to measure and communicate the life cycle environmental performance of products and organisations.
During the pilot phase of the project (2013-2018), the PEF/OEF methods were tested by 27 different industry sectors and about 20 Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCRs) and Organisation Environmental Footprint Sectoral Rules (OEFSRs) were developed. To apply these sets of rules for the calculation of the PEF/OEF profile of a product/organisation, the processes used require both primary (company-specific) and secondary (background) data. Whilst the primary data are produced by the organisation applying the PEFCR/OEFSR (or one of their suppliers as specified in the PEFCR/OEFSR), the secondary datasets shall be available to the final user through free dedicated nodes.
Currently, the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF) project is in its transition phase (2019-2024). During this phase, the sets of rules developed (PEFCRs) are tested, and the background data are updated and expanded.
The ecoinvent association (lead), PRé Sustainability and Blonk Consultants, experts in the creation, management, and provision of life cycle inventories with different levels of aggregation, form a consortium that will provide background datasets necessary for the transition phase of the PEF/OEF project. All partners have experience in the EF technical requirements as well as the ILCD and eILCD formats, due to their work for the pilot phase of the project (2013-2018) and their participation in advisory groups for the European Commission.
Apart from the main members of the consortium, we are proud to collaborate with several of our long-term, trusted partners, including, among others, Atlantic Consulting, ACV Brasil, Centro de Análisis de Ciclo de Vida y Diseño Sustentable S.A. de C.V., Cepi Aisbl, PT Life Cycle Indonesia, The Green House Consultants CC, Quantis Sàrl, Metsims Eğitim ve Dan. Hiz. Ltd. Şti., Wageningen University & Research, ENSAIT, Agroscope.
For the transition phase, the group of organisations will work on, and provide datasets compliant with the latest version of EF modelling requirements and data quality requirements, as listed in the Guide for EF compliant datasets version 2.0 (JRC, 2020), to support the PEFCR under development.
The datasets respond to eight lots as defined by the European Commission and will cover more than 1’300 processes in various sectors: plastics, renewable materials, agrofood, textiles, chemicals, and others. The datasets will be provided in disaggregated as well as fully disaggregated form in the eILCD format. All supply chains will be updated to the EF3.0 nomenclature, and will include the latest data on energy, transport, packaging and end-of-life, as available at the start of the transition phase of the project.
The data shall be made available for distribution via the Life Cycle Data Network, through an existing or a new dedicated node.