Understanding Product Environmental Footprint and Organisation Environmental Footprint methods
Over the last two decades, the European Commission has been driving a process of implementation of life cycle thinking in European product policies. With the development, in a first stage, of the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD), and thereafter of the European Environmental Footprint methods (EF), the life cycle approach has become a major lever for guiding European policies and investments towards the environmental sustainability goals that the European Union has committed itself to.
The Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and the Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF) are life cycle assessment (LCA) based methods to measure and communicate the potential life cycle environmental impact of products (goods or services) and organisations, respectively. Together they form the basis for the EU Environmental Footprint. The technical details of the EF methods are laid down in the Commission Recommendation (EU) 2021/2279 (Annexes I-II-III-IV). Additional guidance documents on the EF methods have been developed during the first applications of the PEF/OEF in the pilot phase (2013-2018) and in the transition phase (2019-2022).
This report provides a simple guide to PEF and OEF, aimed at people who want to know more details about the Environmental Footprint and its main methodological aspects, and people who want to have fast and direct access to the most up-to-date documents, webpages and tools for a more in-depth analysis.
DAMIANI Mattia;
FERRARA Nicola;
ARDENTE Fulvio;
2022-10-04
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC129907
978-92-76-57214-5 (online),
1831-9424 (online),
EUR 31236 EN,
OP KJ-NA-31-236-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC129907,
10.2760/11564 (online),
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