BSI is leading the development of a Publicly Available Specification (PAS) for a method for measuring the embodied greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from goods and services across their lifecycle at the request of the Carbon Trust and Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) - Sponsors of the project.
The PAS process is designed to be open and consultative, taking into account best practice relevant to measuring embodied GHG emissions of products and services in order to develop a credible method practical for organisations to use. The Carbon Trust has developed a method to calculate the total emission of GHG in carbon equivalents from a product across its life cycle (currently excluding in-use emissions). This is currently being tested on a pilot basis. This method, published in March 2007, forms the base document for the PAS document to start from.
In developing the PAS, other existing or proposed initiatives and standards relevant to the PAS are considered in order to ensure consistency with existing and likely future approaches.
BSI manages and leads the PAS development process. In this, BSI is supported by a panel of experts, referred to as the PAS Steering Group. Click here for more information on the roles and responsibilities of the PAS Steering Group.
In line with the open and consultative nature of the PAS process, the views of other stakeholders are also invited through two broad stakeholder consultation elements incorporated in the PAS. Click here for more information on the specifics of the consultation process as well as the roles and responsibilities of the Key Stakeholders and the Review Panel.
Since June 2007 the development of PAS 2050 has benefited significantly from an extensive stakeholder engagement process, which has included a first consultation in October 2007 and a second consultation in March 2008, input from expert work groups, support via commissioned research, and insights arising from testing the draft standard with pilot companies. Following the latest consultation on PAS 2050 (which closed on 28 March 2008) and a meeting of the PAS 2050 Steering Group, the project plan has been updated and the new publication date for the specification is now September/early October 2008. Currently, the latest draft of PAS 2050 is being revised in accordance with the results from the consultation and the additional technical work carried out by the Carbon Trust.
