Why Product Carbon Footprints are Becoming a Strategic Supplier Asset
Customers are increasingly asking for product carbon footprints – here’s what that means for B2B suppliers
23 January 2026
Guidance
Contents
- Why customers are asking for PCFs
- The shift to PCF disclosure
- PCFs as a strategic asset
- Building PCF capabilities
- How Anthesis can help
- Contact us
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Growing demand for supplier-provided product carbon footprints (PCFs), also referred to as carbon footprints of products (CFPs), is quietly reshaping how suppliers are assessed, selected, and retained.
For some B2B suppliers, this shift is impacting their business with expectations for PCF disclosure appearing in customer RFPs, contracts, and supplier codes of conduct. For others, the shoe has yet to drop but the direction of travel is the same. As customers with net zero targets move from ambition to delivery, they are beginning to value product-specific carbon data in ways that directly affect procurement decisions.
According to research by Bain & Company, 50% of B2B customers:
- Buy more from their more sustainable suppliers
- Are willing to pay suppliers a 5% premium for more sustainable products
Suppliers that can provide accurate, usable PCFs are therefore changing how customers engage with them – from bid evaluations and supplier reviews to longer-term partnership discussions.
In this article, we explain:
- Why customers are placing growing value on supplier-provided PCFs
- How PCF disclosure is starting to shape procurement and supplier engagement
- Practical steps suppliers can take to build a scalable PCF capability
- How PCFs can become a source of long-term strategic advantage
Being able to provide product carbon footprints – and a credible plan to reduce them – is becoming a strategic supplier asset that is easy to underestimate, and increasingly hard to ignore.
Why customers are increasingly asking for supplier-provided PCFs
Customer interest in supplier PCFs is a direct consequence of net zero commitments. For most companies, purchased goods account for a significant share of total emissions, comprising an important component of their Scope 3 emissions. In practice, this means any credible net zero target requires reductions in purchased goods impacts. Here, companies encounter a fundamental problem.
When companies begin measuring their carbon footprints, they estimate emissions of purchased goods using industry averages and generic assumptions. This allows for reporting and target-setting, but quickly becomes a barrier to action.
Product footprint estimates based on averages create three problems:
- Accuracy: limited confidence that estimates reflect the impact of a specific product
- Sensitivity: averages do not change when suppliers improve, so reductions cannot be measured or rewarded
- Actionability: little insight into where emissions occur or how to reduce them
This is the Scope 3 data problem. Companies need to reduce emissions from purchased goods, but their static in-house estimates prevent them from measuring or making progress. The only solution is real, product-specific data – and only their suppliers can provide it.
As companies with net zero targets reach this conclusion, the value of supplier PCFs becomes clear.
The quiet shift toward supplier PCF disclosure
To understand how companies are responding, Anthesis reviewed disclosures from 50 global businesses across sectors, including chemicals, automotive, construction, industrial manufacturing, consumer goods, retail, ICT, healthcare, and logistics. Across every sector, companies are beginning to recognise the value of supplier-provided PCFs and, in some cases, are taking steps to obtain them.
Our key takeaways:
Over two-thirds of companies reviewed require PCFs on request, often via supplier codes of conduct.
“Suppliers should also be able to provide product-level emissions via LCA or PCF… on request.”
“Suppliers shall, upon request, be able to provide reasonable documentation to substantiate the environmental impact of their products or services.”
Many companies have made PCF provision a requirement of their RFP process.
“At Kemira, we ask direct material suppliers to report the Product Carbon Footprint of the materials we purchase.”
“Suppliers that contribute significantly to our Scope 3 emissions are asked to share their Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) data.”
“In 2023, we launched an initiative to request product carbon footprint (PCF) data from suppliers of our top raw materials.”
“From April 2028: new requirements will be introduced overseeing the provision of carbon footprinting for individual products supplied to the NHS.”
Some companies link PCFs to procurement and supplier status.
“Wieland takes into account information on product-specific emission values when making procurement decisions and uses these as factors when awarding contracts.”
“Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) is a mandatory requirement in procurement cases with high volumes of production material.”
“[PCF provision plays] an important role during the selection process and provides the supplier with a higher classification.”
“We give favorable consideration to suppliers who disclose their product carbon footprint (PCF) with DuPont.”
Croda also includes PCF provision as one of the criteria in its Sustainable Sourcing Scorecard which is “a key consideration when awarding future business”.
These findings demonstrate that customers are beginning to recognise the value of supplier-provided PCFs and are starting to embed them in supplier engagement and procurement decision-making.
Even where customers have not yet made this connection, any company with a net zero target will ultimately need product-specific footprint data to succeed. Suppliers that can already provide PCFs therefore face little downside in doing so – and significant upside when customers begin to value, integrate, and rely on that data.
Why PCF capability is becoming a strategic supplier asset
Today, relatively few suppliers have product carbon footprint capabilities. When PCF requirements surface in customer requests or tenders, many are left scrambling to respond.
Once a supplier has developed PCF capability, however, its value extends well beyond customers making explicit demands. Providing PCFs as standard business practice changes how suppliers are perceived and evaluated – influencing procurement decisions, supplier reviews, and longer-term partnership discussions, even where no formal requirement exists.
PCFs as a market differentiator
For customers with net zero commitments, supplier-provided PCFs are a practical value-add. They reduce internal effort, improve data quality, and make it easier to report and make decisions. When one supplier can provide usable product carbon data and another cannot, that can mean the difference between winning and losing a contract.
PCF capability also reflects how seriously a supplier has integrated sustainability into its core operations. Being able to generate PCFs shows operational competency, and signals to customers which suppliers are equipped to support net zero delivery, and which are not.
That combination – usefulness and operational readiness – influences who progresses and who drops out in competitive situations.
Stickiness: retention and growth
Just as importantly, PCFs create stickiness. Once product carbon data is integrated into a customer’s carbon accounting and reporting, it becomes a value-added input. It is more accurate and more trusted than generic estimates, and other teams inside the customer organisation begin to rely on it. That reliance creates a practical incentive to retain – and often expand – the supplier relationship.
When suppliers go further and share credible reduction strategies and trajectories, they move beyond reporting and become part of their customers’ net zero roadmaps, embedding themselves even more deeply.
How suppliers can build an effective PCF capability
An effective PCF capability produces consistent, credible product footprint data at portfolio scale and on demand, in a way that meets customer needs.
Building this capability does not require doing everything at once. It requires a small number of deliberate steps, taken in the right order, that allow PCFs to support customer reporting today and enable real emissions reduction over time.
First: understand customers’ climate commitments
Surprisingly, many suppliers lack a clear view of their customers’ net zero targets, timelines, and reporting obligations, even though these are major strategic commitments companies publicly stake their reputations on. Understanding them allows suppliers to anticipate future data needs, improve customer engagement, and focus PCF efforts where they will matter most.
Second: build scalable PCF capability
Over time, suppliers need the ability to generate and update PCFs across their product portfolios, capturing change as it happens rather than producing static, one-off numbers.
This does not require full portfolio coverage from day one. A staged approach is both realistic and effective: start with top-selling products or those most important to customers who already value PCFs (identified in Step 1), then expand over time.
While the idea of developing PCFs for one’s product portfolio can seem like a daunting data task, what many suppliers don’t realise is that credible PCFs can usually be generated using data they already have to hand, such as bills of materials, or supplier compliance data already being collected.
Third: proactively share PCFs
Suppliers that openly share PCFs in bids, customer discussions, and annual reporting, signal credibility and partnership. Just as importantly, they make it easier for customers to integrate that data into their own reporting and decision-making processes.
Croda provides a strong example. Recognising the value PCFs offer customers, it has developed over 2,000 product carbon footprints across its Pharma, Beauty, and Home Care ranges, which customers can request directly via its website.
Sonepar has taken this a step further through its Green Offer programme, which provides customers with product carbon footprint information, as well as its Customer Impact Tracker which provides customers with detailed annual carbon reporting based on total purchased goods. This directly supports customers’ net zero reporting while deepening integration with their procurement processes.
Finally: use PCFs to drive and evidence reduction
PCFs are not just a customer reporting output – they are powerful internal tools for identifying hotspots, prioritising action, and tracking progress over time. Using product carbon footprints to identify, implement, and then measure emissions reductions allows suppliers to demonstrate – with evidence – how their actions are reducing customer impacts and supporting net zero goals.
This is where PCF capability becomes self-reinforcing: better data enables better decisions, which lead to real reductions, which can then be measured and credibly reported back to customers.
The most advanced suppliers go one step further, sharing credible reduction forecasts alongside current PCFs. This allows customers to plan around future improvements and embeds suppliers even more deeply in their strategies.
Conclusion
The value customers place on supplier-provided product carbon footprints is rising, driven by the practical realities of net zero commitments. As companies move beyond high-level targets and estimates, they are increasingly constrained by the quality of data available to them. For purchased goods, that constraint can only be resolved with product-specific information from suppliers.
Whether or not your customers are explicitly asking for PCFs today, any company with a net zero target will ultimately need them to measure progress, plan reductions, and demonstrate results. Suppliers that can provide credible, usable PCFs make themselves easier to buy from, harder to replace, and more valuable to customers as net zero commitments move from reporting to delivery.
Being able to provide customers with the products they need, at a competitive price, will always be the first order of business. But being able to provide carbon footprints for those products – and a credible plan to reduce them – is a strategic competitive advantage.
How Anthesis Can Help
Anthesis supports clients in developing credible, scalable PCF capabilities by combining deep product stewardship expertise with industry‑leading life cycle assessment (LCA) expertise and software solutions. We help organisations understand and improve the sustainability performance of their products across their full life cycle while ensuring compliance, transparency, and robust product declarations that substantiate environmental claims.
Our LCA and product footprinting experts deliver ISO‑aligned, actionable LCAs that identify footprint drivers, quantify product‑level emissions, and enable clients to generate high‑quality PCFs at both product and portfolio scale. Together, these services equip suppliers with the data, insight, and strategic capability needed to meet growing customer demands for PCFs and to differentiate through credible, evidence‑based sustainability performance.
Anthesis has supported many B2B suppliers to respond to customer PCF requests and build integrated, portfolio-level footprinting capabilities. Contact us if you’d like to talk through what a strategic PCF capability could look like for your business – and how to develop it in practice.
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