Philip Dickemann

2023

Allocating carbon emissions to specific products and services presents a significant challenge at every scale in the carbon accounting of companies while being increasingly used as underlying in the decision-making process. However, there is little overarching research on specific methods to achieve an accurate and specific allocation. Thus, this paper aims to provide an overview of methodologies used to attribute carbon emissions at product- and service-level through a systematic literature review of these approaches. Based on this review, the 35 identified literature sources were investigated to gather the current literature understanding and provide carbon allocation methodologies for companies and their products and services. This review reveals a notable gap in research specifically targeting service emissions, while a broad spectrum of industries is explored. The methods frequently disregard the life cycle stages of usage, transport and disposal, and their long-term feasibility remains challenged by their complexity and time-intensive nature.