Following-up on discussions held at the 2012 IPC Sustainability Best Practice Seminar, IPC has moderated a working group composed of representatives from CTT Correios de Portugal, Correos y Telégrafos, PostNord and the United States Postal Service which resulted in the registration of Product Category Rules for the Postal sector in January 2014.
A PCR is a document that provides rules for carrying out a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to be used to declare the verified environmental impact of products according to the standard ISO 14025.
The PCR went through an exhaustive public consultancy as well as a technical review during its development. The PCR simplifies/facilitates the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) procedure upon engagement of a third party consultancy for calculating the environmental impacts -- including the carbon footprint -- of a product. This means an important cost saving for the postal operator involved and ensures comparability of the results; as it standardizes scopes, boundaries, definitions, functional units etc.
The PCR is a living document and has been registered in <a href="http://environdec.com/en/">the international EPD system</a>. If relevant changes in the LCA methodology or in the technology for the product category occur, the document will be revised and any changes will be published on this website.