How do I count recycled content in a product carbon footprint: cut-off or avoided burden?
Use the cut-off (recycled content) method if your product's value lies in the recycled material it contains: recycled inputs carry only their recycling burden and you get no end-of-life credit. Use an avoided burden (end-of-life) method only where your sector rules or buyer require it. Never claim both, and state which one you used.
How the two methods work
- Cut-off, also called the recycled content method or 100:0: recycled input enters with the emissions of collecting and reprocessing it, and nothing from the original product. When your product is recycled at end of life, you get no credit.
- Avoided burden, also called the end-of-life or closed loop approximation method: inputs are counted as if virgin, and you get a credit for the virgin material avoided by recycling your product at end of life.
- The GHG Protocol Product Standard describes both. ISO 14067 points to the ISO 14044 rules for allocation in reuse and recycling.
Which one to choose
- If a product category rule, sector method or your buyer specifies a method, use it.
- If you sell on recycled content, such as recycled PET or secondary aluminium, cut-off rewards what you actually buy.
- If the material is recycled at high rates in a closed loop, such as steel or aluminium in building products, some sector methods use an end-of-life approach; follow that sector's convention.
- If nobody specifies, cut-off is simpler to evidence, because it rests on purchase records rather than assumptions about future recycling.
Rules that apply either way
- Do not use a recycled content benefit and an end-of-life credit on the same material in one result.
- Evidence the recycled share with supplier declarations or chain of custody records, not a percentage from a brochure.
- Report the method in the study and, where it matters to the buyer, show the result under the other method as a sensitivity check.
Worked example: 1 kg aluminium part, 60% recycled input (illustrative factors)
- Illustrative factors: primary aluminium 16.5 kg CO2e per kg, recycled 0.5 kg CO2e per kg
- Cut-off: 0.4 x 16.5 + 0.6 x 0.5 = 6.6 + 0.3 = 6.9 kg CO2e
- Simplified end-of-life method, 90% recycled after use: 0.1 x 16.5 + 0.9 x 0.5 = 1.65 + 0.45 = 2.1 kg CO2e
- Same part, two results that differ by more than three times: the method must be stated
Factors are illustrative and leave out processing, yield losses and transport. The end-of-life figure depends on a future recycling rate you cannot evidence today.
What Senseible does here
Senseible's product carbon footprint calculator has separate virgin and recycled lines for materials such as steel and aluminium and accepts your own factor with a source label, which fits a cut-off approach. It does not calculate end-of-life recycling credits.
Sources: GHG Protocol Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard (2011), recycling allocation methods, ISO 14067:2018, Carbon footprint of products, and ISO 14044:2006, allocation for reuse and recycling
Last reviewed 2026-10-15.