Product Category Rules, PCR
Background
NTM develops PCR (Product Category Rules) for all freight transport modes, aligned with CEN. NTM will finalize these documents and develop additional PCR for passenger travel for publication on the international EPD-homepage. Based on these PCR-documents transport services can monitor its performance according to an EPD, Environmental Product Declaration.
The international EPD®system is based on a hierarchic approach following the international standards ISO 9001 (Quality management systems), ISO 14001 (Environmental management systems), ISO 14040 (LCA – Principles and procedures), ISO 14044 (LCA – Requirements and guidelines), ISO 14025 (Type III environmental declarations) and ISO 21930 (Environmental declaration of building products) upon which the General Programme Instructions are based, as well as instructions for developing Product Category Rules (PCR).
Aim
The purpose of these PCR is to provide necessary rules to enable • the development of an EPD for transport services or for • the compilation of transport data as input for a product supply chain assessment or passenger journeys. Both approaches include the process of assessing the environmental performance data (LCI data) associated with the transport, including specified indirect environmental performance data from supporting systems. Assessment methods are presented for the following two transport situations:
A) The assessment of a specified shipment/passenger transported by a specified mode of transport
B) The assessment of a specified shipment/passenger transported by any mode of transport operating within a defined transport system.
Method
The presented calculation methods can be used for calculation purposes such as: – to develop environmental data for comparison of different system solutions for transport services or supply chain solutions (for supply chain solutions, follow method stated in PCR Basic Module 65 Freight Transportation), – to develop data for a specific part of a system in order to assess and optimize its environmental performance. – to assess the environmental performance data of a transport service as an input to an environmental management system, legal assessment, or 3rd party environmental labelling. The default data is selected in order to be representative of a ‘typical transport as performed today (2005-2012).
The default data is selected in order to be representative of a ‘typical transport as performed today’. Therefore, the most up-to-date and wide-covering data source available shall be used and updated regularly.
For more information: info@ntmcalc.org
