I sell an intermediate product such as kraft paper. What does the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Product Standard let me say about recycling and carbon content in a cradle-to-gate footprint?

A cradle-to-gate footprint leaves out the use and end-of-life stages. The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol Product Standard lets you use the recycled content method for your recycled inputs, and says you shall report the carbon contained in the product leaving your gate. End-of-life information may sit beside it, separate.

What stays out and why

A cradle-to-gate inventory done to the standard does not include the use and end-of-life stages of the final product. The standard says this keeps the life cycle approach continuous and avoids cherry picking, such as leaving out a heavy use stage but keeping end-of-life.

You are required to disclose and justify a cradle-to-gate boundary. The standard gives lack of knowledge of the final product's use profile as an example of a fair reason. It should also be clear in the process map and the stage descriptions.

If you do know the final product's use profile, the standard says you should do a full cradle-to-grave inventory.

What you may do on recycling

• If your product has recycled inputs, you can use the recycled content method and account for the material recovery facility and recycling process emissions for that input.
• If your product is known to be recycled at end of life whatever it is used for, you may report this separately in the report with any other end-of-life information a stakeholder could use.
• You may include end-of-life recycling in the results of an intermediate product only if you know the function of the final product and do a cradle-to-grave inventory.

What you shall report on carbon

The standard says that for cradle-to-gate inventories companies shall report the amount of carbon contained in the intermediate product. It says this lets a downstream customer doing a cradle-to-grave inventory of a final product use your result. Companies may add end-of-life information, as long as it is clearly separated from the inventory results, such as the total carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per unit of analysis, and from the process map.

What a converter asking you for data needs (our reading)

• Your CO2e per tonne, with the boundary stated as cradle-to-gate.
• The recycled input share and the method used for it.
• The carbon contained in a tonne of your paper, in kilograms of carbon, and how much of it is biogenic (plant based, for example wood or agro-residue fibre) and how much is fossil (non-biogenic).
• Any end-of-life facts, kept on a separate line.

Example: what the data sheet for one tonne of kraft paper would show

• Boundary: cradle-to-gate, because the final box use is not known to us
• Total: 1,100 kilograms of CO2e per tonne (example), recycled content method used for the waste paper input
• Carbon contained in the tonne leaving the gate: 450 kilograms of carbon (example)
• Separate note: this paper is known to be recycled at end of life (example); not included in the 1,100

All figures are example values for layout, not factors. They are not published paper values.

What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel invoices, electricity bills and fuel slips into a dated emission record. Picking a recycling method for a product footprint stays with you and your buyer.

• Kraft paper supplier carbon data for a box maker
• Recycled content: cut-off or avoided burden?
• Duplex board footprint per tonne
• Free calculators

Sources: GHG Protocol Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard (chapters 7, 9 and 11)

Last reviewed 2026-11-05. Statements come from section 7.3.7, Box 9.3 and section 11.2 of the Product Standard. Ask the converter which of these items it wants before building the sheet.