Product Carbon Footprint Toolkit
Product Carbon Footprints (PCFs) translate greenhouse gas emissions into a practical metric for action. They help make emissions visible, improve comparability across products, and support more informed decisions on where to focus reduction efforts. Supplier-specific PCFs can help improve transparency, support more accurate reporting, and identify hotspots.
Section Overview
Our PCF Journey
In 2023, we decided to take a portfolio approach to calculating carbon footprints. We provide over 300,000 products, so calculating PCFs individually was not feasible. We selected a system which had the capability to calculate PCFs for all products in our portfolio.
We selected AllocNow, due to their ability to integrate with our Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems as well as our carbon accounting software.
We calculated PCFs for all products in 2024 and began verifying data for the various ERPs in our ecosystem. In parallel, we have worked to verify weight and emission factor data for many of our products to produce trusted results that we can share with our customers.
We started communicating PCFs in 2026 and aim to have 100% of our portfolio calculated with verified results by 2030.
- GHG Protocol Product Life Cycle Accounting & Reporting Standard
- ISO 14067:2018
- Together for Sustainability (TfS) PCF Guideline
- PACT Methodology for Product Carbon Footprints
- GHG Protocol Corporate Standard (Scope 1 & 2)
- GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance
- GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain Standard (Scope 3)
View all toolkits
We’ve created various toolkits to support your sustainability goals across your business, and we’re continuously expanding to create more resources for our suppliers.
Sustainability at Merck
We built the framework of this toolkit by leveraging insights from our own strategy. Click here to learn more about sustainability at Merck.