A chemical customer asked for a PCF under the TfS guideline. What do I need to provide, and how is it different from a GHG inventory?
Send a cradle-to-gate carbon footprint for one kilogram of the specific product, built the way the Together for Sustainability (TfS) guideline sets out: your own site energy and process data, your raw material footprints, a stated allocation method and a data quality note. A company GHG inventory is not a PCF, though it supplies much of the site data.
How a PCF differs from your GHG inventory
- Unit: the inventory is tonnes CO2e for the whole company in a year; the PCF is kg CO2e per kg of one product leaving your gate.
- Boundary: the inventory splits emissions into Scope 1, 2 and 3; the PCF follows the product from raw material extraction to your factory gate and ignores scopes.
- Allocation: the inventory needs none; the PCF must share site emissions among the products made on the same lines.
- Raw materials: in the inventory they sit in Scope 3 Category 1, often spend-based; in a PCF they are usually the largest part and should use supplier or database footprints per kg.
What the customer will expect in the file
- Product identity and declared unit, normally 1 kg of product at your gate.
- Reference period, usually the last 12 months of production.
- Total cradle-to-gate footprint in kg CO2e per kg, with fossil and biogenic parts reported separately as the guideline asks.
- Primary data share: how much comes from your own measured data rather than databases.
- Allocation method used and why, and any cut-offs or exclusions.
- Sources of secondary data and emission factors, with versions.
- Data exchanged in the PACT format if the customer uses a PACT-conformant system.
The order of work for a small chemical plant
- Collect 12 months of site energy: electricity bills, fuel invoices for boilers and thermic fluid heaters, steam purchases.
- Get production volumes for each product on the same lines and in the same months.
- Allocate site energy to the requested product. The guideline prefers splitting by process step or measured use; fall back to a physical basis such as mass only when that is not possible, and say so.
- List every raw material per kg of product with its footprint, using supplier PCFs where you have them and a named database otherwise.
- Add inbound transport, packaging and waste treatment where material.
- Write the result and method note, and keep the working file so the customer or a reviewer can trace each number.
Mistakes that get a PCF sent back
- Dividing the whole company inventory by total tonnes sold. That mixes products and leaves out raw materials.
- Using spend-based raw material factors when the customer asked for primary data.
- No allocation statement, or allocating by revenue without saying so.
- Mixing grid factors from different years or countries without naming them.
Worked example: gate-to-gate energy share for one product (illustrative)
- Site energy in the period: 120,000 kWh grid electricity and 8,000 litres furnace oil
- Electricity: 120,000 x 0.710 = 85,200 kg CO2
- Furnace oil: 8,000 x 2.97 = 23,760 kg CO2
- Site total: 85,200 + 23,760 = 108,960 kg CO2
- Output: 400 t in total, of which the requested product is 100 t, so a 25% mass share
- Allocated: 108,960 x 0.25 = 27,240 kg CO2 for 100,000 kg of product
- Gate-to-gate energy part: 27,240 / 100,000 = about 0.27 kg CO2 per kg
This is only your own energy step. Raw material footprints are added on top and are usually much larger. The grid and fuel factors here cover CO2 only; a PCF is in CO2e, so note that methane and nitrous oxide from combustion are left out or add them.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads your electricity bills and fuel invoices into Scope 1 and 2 records with the factor and source on each line, which is the site energy data a PCF starts from. It does not produce TfS or PACT-conformant product footprints, raw material footprints or the allocation itself.
Sources: WBCSD PACT Methodology for product carbon footprints, ISO 14067:2018, Carbon footprint of products, IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 Energy (fuel factors)
Last reviewed 2026-10-15. The TfS PCF Guideline is revised from time to time to stay aligned with PACT; confirm which version your customer cites before sending.