Organizations using TCO Certified to procure IT products now have a new way to measure their sustainability impact. TCO’s Report Generator is a web-based reporting tool that presents verified data and claims about certified products.
Reports compiled by Report Generator cover three areas: carbon emissions, material use, and socially responsible manufacturing. Using Report Generator helps organisations measure and communicate progress toward key sustainability targets such as reduced climate impact, waste reduction, and worker protection in the supply chain.
The tool is designed to support regular measurement and reporting processes. Data is presented year-on-year, which helps to monitor progress over time. For improved accuracy, reports are customized to each organization in terms of purchased products, quantities, expected service life, and region.
Measurements of product carbon footprints has been a difficult topic to address in sustainability reporting. The scope 3 carbon emissions are the most difficult part to calculate, and for a typical notebook computer this makes up more than 80 percent of the total footprint.
Currently there is no standardized life cycle assessment methodology and it is feasible that the same product will get completely different results depending on the tool and method used for the product carbon footprint calculation.
To avoid this problem the Report Generator uses average scope 3 calculations for different product types produced by research by Px3 CEO Dr. Justin Sutton-Parker. The method used for the calculation is described in his research article “Is sufficient carbon footprint information available to make sustainability focused computer procurement strategies meaningful?”.
Since most of the carbon footprint of IT products generally takes place in the manufacturing and supply chains, the most important action for purchasing organisations who want to lower their carbon footprint is to find different ways of prolonging the life length of the IT products they use. This can be done by increasing the use time of the first user or finding a second user in the same organization. Similar to Px3‘s existing end user computing estimator, calculator and device comparison applications, TCO’s beta version of the Report Generator calculates the yearly carbon footprint based on the chosen scenarios.
It’s an honour to be able to generate the computer supply chain GHG emissions data for the TCO Report Generator. The TCO certification is a recognised world leading computer eco-label and to be able to assist the team to take the next scientific step towards influencing procurement behaviours that will reduce IT scope 3 emissions is important to driving climate action with sustainable IT.’
Dr. Justin Sutton-Parker, Px3 CEO and Research Fellow with the University of Warwick