About Product Category Rules
A PCR is defined in the ISO 14025 standard as "set of specific rules, requirements and guidelines for developing Type III environmental declarations (3.2) for one or more product categories (3.12)". PCR categories are continuously developed by ISO programme operators - companies, NGOs, and government agencies.
The PCR, in general, provides the instructions on how the life-cycle assessment (LCA) should be conducted for a particular Product Category.
In Makersite, PCR is a data object used to build a life cycle model of your product which, in turn, serves as a foundation for providing environmental calculations compliant with various programmes and standards such as the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), or Product Environmental Footprint (PEF). PCRs are assigned to UNSPSC Product Categories, which in turn are assigned to actual products modelled in Makersite.
This document explains how to find PCRs in Makersite, how to create or edit them, and what is their significance for the actual environmental calculations. If you're interested in importing PCR data, read about importing PCRs to Makersite.
Prerequisites
If you want to follow up on the Ball Pen example, make sure that you have imported the BOM first. Otherwise, the only generic requirement is that you must know the UNSPSC code of the Product Category you're creating a PCR for.
Create a PCR in Makersite
Create a PCR in Makersite and assign it to a Product Category.
Add Basic Information
Go to Compose > PCR. A pop-up window opens where you can add the basic PCR information.
Fill in the form and Save.
To access a previously saved PCR, navigate from the home page to My Drive > Mysite > PCR , this is where all PCR's are saved. Selecting one of the PCR's in the list will open it.
Field Explanations
PCR Name - this field is required, it will be the name the PCR is saved in Makersite as. We suggest to apply some sort of naming convention for your PCRs. For example, if you are using the Ball Pen, the PCR can be called Ball Pen Example PCR.
Product Category This field is also required, the entry here will determine the top level Product Category for the product being analyzed. A Product Category in Makersite is a United Nations Standard Product and Services Code (UNSPSC) number that a part or material is categorized under.
Check the UNSPSC Search website to find the most relevant code for a product. If the exact product cannot be found, the closest match can be used.
For the Ball Pen example we will use 44000000 - Office Equipment and Accessories and Supplies, this includes the sub code 44121701 - Rollerball pens.
Description - this field is optional, but it is advisable to fill out with a short description to help identify each PCR if multiple rules are created.
Add PCR Category Data
Now we need to add specific PCR Category Data (for example End of Life, Transport, and more). The type of assessment you want to use this PCR for and your system boundaries (for example cradle-to-gate vs cradle-to-grave) determine what you need to enter here. Each tab allows the entry of a specific category of information to build the PCR.
Below the tabs, the main page under Description shows general information about the PCR, including the entries created above. To add additional attributes, click on the blue + button in the bottom right corner, and select the information you need from the pop-up.
Tab Explanation
Description
This is the overview tab for the PCR, showing general information and the top level Product Category (UNSPSC).
Market Share
This is where the Market Share for the product can be set. Each entry is assigned a proportion (0-1), which determines the weighting between each geographic area. Note that this page defines how product sales are split per region, not the actual market share in that geography.
Click on the blue + button to add a Market Share to the PCR. Type the region into the Geography field and choose the correct region from the list.
Then enter the proportion in the Share field, this should be the percentage market share, represented as a number between 0-1, e.g. 25% should be entered as 0.25.
With the fields completed, click on the tick in the top right corner of the pop-up to add the region.
Auxiliaries
Auxiliaries in Makersite are the products used in manufacturing processes. They are automatically mapped to the substances for each item in an IPC or BOM import.
You can browse or manually add them on this tab.
Substage represents the EPD category, if applicable. Mandatory if you want to use your life cycle model calculated from this PCR for EPD score.
Product Used represents the product added by an auxiliary process.
Reference unit is the unit in which the auxiliary product is measured.
Preferred Route is the actual process which outputs the auxiliary product.
Use
In the Use page we model the environmental impacts generated when using the product. This is necessary in a cradle-to-grave assessment.
Substage represents the EPD category related to product usage. Mandatory if you want to measure the EPD environmental impacts related to the usage stage (B1-B6 categories).
Product used represents any product usage in this product's use stage. This could be replacement parts or energy consumed.
Reference unit defines how we measure the product used. It could be unit for a specific number of replacement parts, or kWh for energy.
Preferred route is the process which outputs the product used (our energy or spare parts).
Formula is how we multiply the output.
Transport
In the Transport page we model the transport-related impacts of the product. Transport can mean both distribution or end-of-life transport (for example to a landfill).
Substage represents the EPD category, if applicable. Mandatory if you want to measure the EPD environmental impacts related to the transport activities stage (A4 related to product distribution or C2 related to EOL transport).
Product used represents the type of transport, for example the transport, freight, sea, container ship [metric ton*km] Product Group .
Reference unit defines how we measure the transport. For example, metric ton*km.
Preferred route is the process which outputs the product group related to transport.
Formula is the number of metric tons transported multiplied by the total distance travelled i.e. metric tons*km.
Take the weight of the product being transported in kg, and multiply that by the number of kilometres travelled, and enter the number.
For this example, the material weight is 0.6kg (0.0006 tonnes) and it will travel 10,305 nautical miles by ship (19084km) = 11.45metric tons*km.
Repeat this procedure for each remaining region (India, China, and North America for the Ball Pen example).
India 6.778metric tons*km
Europe 0.505metric tons*km
North America 3.506metric tons*km
EOL Datasets
End Of Life Datasets define the processes used in the End of Life stage of the product life cycle. These processes model the impact from product recycling, incineration, and landfill. You need to assign these processes for every material used to make your product in all regions where the product is sold.
Every region and material must have an EOL Dataset assigned to it. For example, in case of the Ball Pen, if the product contains Steel, you need a EOL Dataset for Steel, for North America, China, India, and the European Union, as each region will have very different EOL practices which affect the model.
Click on the blue + button to add a dataset to the PCR.
Region should match one of the regions set on the Market Share tab. You should define EOL Datasets for all geographies from Market Share here. Enter European Union [EU-NAT] for the Ball Pen example.
Product Category requires a UNSPSC code for the material being modelled. You can look up the product category when you open your material's Product Model > Grid View > your Product Group > Information section in the panel to the right. will show which Product Category is assigned to it.
Enter 13102018 Low Density Polyethylene LDPE [Thermoplastic plastics] for this example, this corresponds to the Cap component of the Ball Pen.
For more information, please see the Product Model article on the Makersite FAQ pages.
Credit is where you model how the credits are assigned for this material. The exact share of material credited is defined by the Credit fraction in EOL Pathways. Makersite typically does not use credits and accounts for them during the production phase, in which case you don't need any information here.
Recycling, Incineration, and Landfill refer to the EOL disposal processes the material goes through. The specific proportions of these are entered under EOL Pathways, here you only need to specify the process. The entries here are the processes themselves. You only have to fill in the disposal process that's actually used for this material. For example, if the material EOL is split between Incineration (25%) and Landfill (75%), then both processes should be entered.
Select GLO: treatment of waste plastic, mixture, municipal incineration and GLO: treatment of waste plastic, mixture, sanitary landfill for the Ball Pen example.Source is an optional field to enter the source of your information.
You need to fill in the above for each remaining region in your product (India, China, and North America for the Ball Pen example).
EOL Pathways
EOL Pathway is the proportion of each EOL process assigned in EOL Datasets (for Incineration, Recycling, and Landfill), for each region.
Click on the blue + button to add a dataset to the PCR.
Region should match one of the regions set on the Market Share tab. You should define EOL Datasets for all geographies from Market Share here. Enter European Union [EU-NAT] for the Ball Pen example.
Product Category as above on the EOL Datasets tab, should match whichever material is being modelled. Enter 13102018 Low Density Polyethylene LDPE [Thermoplastic plastics] for the Ball Pen example, this corresponds to the Cap component of the Ball Pen.
Credit Fraction represents the proportion of material eligible for credits. At the moment, 0 means 100% and 1 means 0% (credits are cut off). This is a known issue in the system and will be fixed in the future. Most of PCRs in Makersite are typically modelled for cut-off, and recycled materials or energy from incineration/landfill are accounted for during production stage.
Recycling Fraction, Incineration Fraction, and Landfill Fraction should be set based on how the materials EOL is proportioned. For example, if 25% of the LDPE is incinerated and 75% landfilled, you should enter incineration = 0.75 and landfill = 0.25. Please note that if your values do not sum up to 100%, the missing part is assumed to be landfilled.
In case of the Ball Pen example, do the following for each remaining region (India, China, and North America):
India 20% incineration, 80% landfill
China 40% incineration, 60% landfill
North America 5% incineration, 95% landfill
Normalization
The Normalization tab adds factors that scale each environmental impact so that they can be directly compared to each other.
Each of the Impact Categories has a different scale or unit, therefore a weighting is required to adjust this to a common level.
The sum of the Impact Categories produces the PEF score. The weightings/scaling factors can be set manually, or they can follow the PEF weighting rules.
Discussion
Discussions are a way to get answers to your product questions from the community quickly and effectively. By tagging data objects like products, processes etc. directly in your conversations, you ensure that answers can be grounded in live data.
What's Next?
Since PCRs impact specific Product Categories, you must make sure that Product Categories are correctly mapped against your Product Groups/Products, or the life cycle model for your product will be wrong.
Having defined PCRs for your product model (that means ideally all sub-assemblies from your BOM), you can generate the Life Cycle Model for your Product.