Which recycling method does the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Product Standard say fits my product: recycled content or closed loop approximation?

Question

Accepted Answer

The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol Product Standard lists situations for each method. Where both methods are equally applicable, the standard's guidance is that recycled content should be used when your product has recycled input but no recycling follows, when the recycled material market is saturated, when you control the recycled share, or when the use stage is long or uncertain. Where both methods are equally applicable, the standard's guidance is: The product contains recycled input, but no recycling occurs downstream. The market for the recycled material is saturated, for example not all recovered material is used as a recycled input and supply exceeds demand, so creating recycled material may not displace the extraction of virgin material. The recycled content of the product is directly affected by your own activities alone, so you control how much recycled material to buy. The standard says this could potentially be used as a reduction mechanism. The use stage is long, or highly uncertain, so the amount recycled at end of life is also highly uncertain. Where both methods are equally applicable, the standard's guidance is: The recycled content of the product is unknown, because recycled material cannot be told apart from virgin material in the market. The market for the recycled material is not saturated, for example all recovered material is used as a recycled input and demand exceeds supply, so creating more recycled material is likely to increase the amount used. The use stage is short, or well known. The standard says companies shall use either the closed loop approximation or the recycled content method for allocation due to recycling. If you feel neither is appropriate for a material input or output, the method used should meet the standard's requirements and be referenced from sector guidance, product rules, technical reports, journal articles or other standards. When it is not obvious which method is most appropriate, the standard says companies should run a scenario uncertainty assessment, for example a sensitivity analysis, on the possible methods and include the results in the inventory report. Whichever you pick, you shall disclose and justify it. For paper products, see the conditions a third method has to meet, on the linked page about a third method for paper fibre. A carton maker that buys board with a recycled fibre share stated on the supplier's paperwork, and picks that share itself, sits in the third recycled content line. A maker of a long-life product, such as a glass storage jar, sits in the fourth recycled content line, because nobody can say what will be recycled in many years. A seller of a material whose recycled share cannot be seen by the buyer sits in the first closed loop line. The lines can point both ways for one product. Then the sensitivity analysis is the standard's own answer. The page on cut-off or avoided burden here gives a short rule of thumb. This page gives the standard's own lists. Where a product category rule, sector method or buyer names a method, follow that, and say so in the report.

Which recycling method does the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Product Standard say fits my product: recycled content or closed loop approximation?

When the standard says to use the recycled content method

When it says to use the closed loop approximation method

If neither fits, or you cannot tell

Our reading for packaging (not the standard's words)

How this sits with the cut-off page on this site

Example walk-through, three example products

What Senseible does here