What is carbon efficiency?
Carbon Efficiency is an essential value in determining the environmental impact of a product, its carbon footprint, as it takes both the product’s lifespan and the space used into account providing a life cycle assessment.
Why is it important to understand how carbon efficient a product is?
Once you understand how much carbon is being used in the whole life cycle of creating a product you can see the areas to improve. Benchmarking the carbon efficiency against other designs, giving you a life cycle assessment.
What are the 5 benefits of carbon efficiency?
Here are the top five benefits of measuring a product’s carbon footprint:
- Benchmarking Product Averages: Measuring Carbon Efficiency allows dc to determine category averages. For example, knowing that the average Carbon Efficiency of an illuminated retail fixture display in 2022 is 266 kg CO²e per m², allows for comparisons between different manufacturers and brands
- Environmental: By implementing dc’s principles of reducing, reusing, and recycling, designers can measure the environmental of a design. For example, using materials with reduced carbon impact allows for a decreased carbon footprint.
- Compliance & Future-Proofing: The Carbon Efficiency label allows manufacturers to report the Carbon Efficiency Rating of their products. The label also includes the potential future Carbon Efficiency Rating if components have been reused and waste products recycled.
- KPIs & Setting Carbon Reduction Targets: Knowing a product’s benchmark allows manufacturers and designers to set targets to reduce the carbon footprint of designs. Manufacturers are increasingly working with dc to introduce Carbon Efficiency targets.
- Decreased Maintenance: dc recommends using standardised parts, allowing designers to control post-warranty costs and to reduce dependency on suppliers. Standardised parts also means that fewer replacements are needed for product maintenance, decreasing waste.
Benefits of dc certification
Design circularity defines how the product should be used throughout its life. The material weights are calculated in percentage for each category seen below, which total the product’s design circularity. Several factors contribute to the rating, including:
- Deconstruction: This considers the percentage of materials that can be disassembled and separated for recycling purposes.
- Designed for reuse: This takes into account the percentage of materials that can be reused beyond the intended product life and design brief.
- Refurbished components: This measures the percentage of materials used in components that have been refurbished for reuse.
- Recyclability: This assesses the percentage of materials that can be recycled.
- Renewable materials: This evaluates the percentage of materials sourced from renewable sources like FSC timber. The combined total of these categories, or the design circularity, is uniquely rated to allow product comparison and benchmarking.
To access a free 7-day trial of the carbon efficiency estimator click here.
For more information on a dc certificate click here.
