A method of production carbon footprint analysis in a supply chain based on life cycle assessment

Abstract

As global warming becomes increasingly severe, environmental consciousness has become critical in the design and operation of globally integrated supply chain networks. Product Carbon Footprint is defined as the life cycle Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions of goods and services and it can be considered as a simplified life cycle assessment restricted to a single impact category. In order for companies to better confront GHG emission issues, calculating product carbon footprint and analysing how various parameters affect the carbon footprint over the entire life cycle of a product is necessary. This paper studies the carbon footprint across supply chains and proposes a method of production carbon footprint analysis in a supply chain based on life cycle assessment, including the following: taking product life cycle as the span of carbon footprint analysis, with all kinds of complex information system as objects and then carrying out the carbon footprint knowledge extraction according to the concept model format in physical database; building a carbon footprint analysis ontology, which is related to product life cycle in supply chain environment; calculating the quantification of carbon footprint through GHG emissions over the entire life cycle, and designing a tool for product carbon footprint in supply chain environment.