# How do I count recycled content in a product carbon footprint: cut-off or avoided burden?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/how-to-count-recycled-content-in-product-footprint

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

1. If a product category rule, sector method or your buyer specifies a method, use it.
2. If you sell on recycled content, such as recycled PET or secondary aluminium, cut-off rewards what you actually buy.
3. 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.
4. 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.

- [Product carbon footprint calculator](https://senseible.earth/calculators/product-carbon-footprint)
- [Aluminium recycling and Scope 3 savings](https://senseible.earth/climate-intelligence/msme-aluminium-recycling-scope-3-savings)
- [Does scrap count as zero emissions under CBAM?](https://senseible.earth/answers/does-scrap-count-as-zero-emissions-cbam)
- [Mass balance or segregation](https://senseible.earth/answers/chain-of-custody-mass-balance-vs-segregation)

Sources: [GHG Protocol Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard (2011), recycling allocation methods](https://ghgprotocol.org/standards), [ISO 14067:2018, Carbon footprint of products, and ISO 14044:2006, allocation for reuse and recycling](https://www.iso.org)

Last reviewed 2026-10-15.