Which methods can be used to assess climate neutrality?

On the way to climate neutrality, reducing emissions through the use of renewable energies for energy generation is indispensable. However, this alone will not be enough. To achieve complete decarbonization, the environmental impacts of products or services must be minimized over their entire life cycle. Measuring these impacts with a life cycle assessment (LCA) is the first step towards reducing them. The process of a product’s LCA first examines the manufacturing phase, continues through the entire use phase, and also includes disposal processes. The life cycle perspective is not only gaining in importance for indivudal products; with the help of so-called “Scope 3” emissions, it is also increasingly being integrated into the determination of companies’ (GHG) footprint. In addition to preparing climate and life cycle assessments of products and companies, the FfE is also involved in evaluating transformation paths towards a climate-neutral energy system. In order to integrate the life cycle perspective into such systemic assessments, the LCA method is increasingly coupled with our energy system models.

Specifically, we look at the following questions:

• How do I balance the GHG footprint of a product?
• How do I balance the GHG footprint of a company?
• How do I assess technologies that are in an early stage of development?
• What is the current and future emission factor for energy sources?
• How can national climate targets be reconciled with savings in the international supply chain?
• What climate-related product labels exist, and how reliable is their accounting?