On this page
- What a carbon footprint consultant does
- Corporate carbon footprint or product carbon footprint
- Standards and regulatory status in October 2026
- How we calculate a corporate carbon footprint
- How we calculate a product carbon footprint
- Data and emission factors
- Verification readiness
- From footprint to reduction roadmap
- Answering carbon data requests from EU customers
- How a carbon footprint project runs
- What drives cost and timeline
- Why a Turkey-based team helps
- Related services
Ekol Çevre is a carbon footprint consultant based in Turkey. We calculate corporate carbon footprints (greenhouse gas inventories to ISO 14064-1 and the GHG Protocol) and product carbon footprints to ISO 14067, using your own plant data, and we prepare both for independent verification. Much of our international work starts when an EU customer asks a Turkish supplier for Scope 3 or product-level emissions data, or when a company needs its first baseline that a verifier will accept.
What a carbon footprint consultant does
A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas emissions, expressed in tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e), caused by an organisation over a year or by one unit of product over its life cycle. A carbon footprint consultant sets the boundary, collects activity data, selects emission factors, calculates the result to a recognised standard and documents it so that a verifier can check every number.
The calculation itself is rarely the hard part. The work that decides whether a footprint is usable is boundary setting, data tracing back to invoices and meters, and consistent methodological choices that hold up year after year. That is where most of our time goes.
Corporate carbon footprint or product carbon footprint
The two footprints answer different questions. A corporate footprint tells you how much your organisation emits in a reporting year. A product carbon footprint (PCF) tells you how much one tonne, one square metre or one piece of a specific product emits. Buyers and regulators ask for one or the other, and increasingly for both.
| Question | Corporate carbon footprint | Product carbon footprint |
|---|---|---|
| What it measures | All emissions and removals of the organisation in one year | Emissions of one functional or declared unit of product |
| Main standards | ISO 14064-1:2018, GHG Protocol Corporate Standard and Scope 3 Standard | ISO 14067:2018, GHG Protocol Product Standard, PACT Methodology |
| Result expressed as | tCO2e per year, split by category or scope | kg CO2e per unit, split by life cycle stage |
| Typical trigger | CSRD or TSRS reporting, SBTi targets, bank or investor questionnaires, CDP | Customer tenders, PCF data exchange, EPDs, EU product rules |
| Verification | ISO 14064-3 by an accredited verification body | ISO 14064-3 verification or ISO/TS 14071 critical review |
For a manufacturing company the corporate inventory usually comes first. It collects the fuel, electricity, raw material and waste data for the whole site, and the product footprint then allocates the same data to individual products. Doing them in that order avoids paying twice for data collection and keeps the two results consistent, which verifiers and customers do check.
Signs that you need a corporate inventory
- A customer or parent company asks for your Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions or for a CDP supply chain response.
- You fall under CSRD, the Turkish Sustainability Reporting Standards (TSRS) or a lender's environmental and social requirements.
- You want to set a science-based target or publish a reduction commitment.
- Your installation falls under the Turkish emissions trading system and you want a full picture beyond the regulated direct emissions.
Signs that you need a product carbon footprint
- A buyer asks for kg CO2e per product, often in a PACT-compatible format or through a supplier platform.
- You plan an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for construction products or other markets.
- You supply batteries, or components for batteries, that will need an EU carbon footprint declaration.
- You want to compare product designs, recipes or suppliers on emissions.
Standards and regulatory status in October 2026
Several of the standards behind carbon footprinting are being rewritten, and Turkey now has a climate law and an emissions trading regulation. The table shows where each one stands as of 27 October 2026 and what it means in practice.
| Instrument | Status | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| ISO 14064-1:2018 | Current edition. Revision work is under way in ISO/TC 207/SC 7. | Build your inventory to it now. Verifiers audit against this edition. |
| GHG Protocol Corporate Standard, Scope 2 Guidance (2015), Scope 3 Standard (2011) | Being consolidated with ISO 14064-1 into one joint corporate standard. Public consultation planned for Q2 2027 and publication for Q4 2028. | Current versions still apply. Keep calculation records detailed enough to restate later. |
| GHG Protocol Scope 2 revision | Consultation ran from 20 October 2025 to 31 January 2026. Feedback summary published July 2026. | Market-based rules for electricity may tighten. Dual reporting remains the rule today. |
| ISO 14067:2018 | Current edition. ISO and the GHG Protocol launched a joint working group in October 2025 to write a new product-level standard. | ISO 14067 remains the reference for PCF studies and verification. |
| PACT Methodology v3 (WBCSD) | Released 30 April 2025. Replaces v2 (formerly the Pathfinder Framework) for new calculations. | The format many multinational buyers use to exchange cradle-to-gate PCFs. |
| SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard v2.0 | Published June 2026, with a transition period before it becomes mandatory for new target submissions. | A credible base year inventory with Scope 3 is still the starting point for any target. |
| Turkish Climate Law No. 7552 | In force since 9 July 2025. | Legal basis for the Turkish ETS and for permits for covered installations. |
| Turkish Emissions Trading System Regulation | Official Gazette No. 33353, 27 August 2026. It replaced the 2014 regulation on monitoring greenhouse gas emissions. | Covered installations monitor under approved plans and submit verified reports by 30 April each year. |
| EU Battery Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, Article 7 | Carbon footprint declaration for EV batteries applies 12 months after the methodology delegated act enters into force. That act had not been published in the Official Journal at the time of writing. | A mandatory PCF is coming for batteries. Suppliers of cells, cathode material and other components will be asked for data. |
How we calculate a corporate carbon footprint
A corporate inventory starts with the organisational boundary (which legal entities and sites you consolidate, using operational control, financial control or equity share) and the reporting boundary (which indirect emission sources you include). ISO 14064-1 groups emissions into six categories, while the GHG Protocol uses Scopes 1, 2 and 3 with 15 Scope 3 categories. The two systems describe the same emissions, and we can report one dataset in both formats. Our mapping between ISO 14064-1 categories and Scopes 1, 2 and 3 shows how they line up.
We then fix a base year, document the quantification approach for each source, assess uncertainty and write the GHG report in the structure ISO 14064-1 Clause 9 requires. The details of boundaries, base year recalculation and verification are on our corporate carbon footprint and ISO 14064-1 consultancy page.
How we calculate a product carbon footprint
A product carbon footprint to ISO 14067 follows life cycle assessment rules from ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, but only for climate change. The key choices are the functional or declared unit, the system boundary (cradle-to-gate for most intermediate products, cradle-to-grave where use and end of life matter), the product category rules (PCR) that apply, and how shared plant emissions are allocated between products.
For most Turkish suppliers to EU industry, the request is a cradle-to-gate PCF per kilogram or per piece, with a high share of primary data from the plant and supplier-specific data for the main raw materials. We explain the method in detail on our product carbon footprint assessment page, including how ISO 14067 differs from the GHG Protocol Product Standard.
Data and emission factors
A footprint is only as good as its activity data. We ask for data that already exists in your accounting, energy and environmental records, and we trace each figure to a source document. The checklist below is what we request in the first week of a typical manufacturing project.
| Data area | Typical source documents | Used in |
|---|---|---|
| Natural gas, diesel, LPG, coal and other fuels | Supplier invoices, meter readings, fuel card records | Scope 1 (ISO category 1), PCF |
| Electricity and purchased steam | Monthly invoices, sub-meter readings, YEK-G or I-REC certificates | Scope 2 (ISO category 2), PCF |
| Refrigerants and fire suppression gases | Service and top-up records, equipment inventory | Scope 1 |
| Process emissions | Carbonate inputs, laboratory analyses, mass balances | Scope 1, PCF |
| Raw materials and packaging | Purchase ledger by mass, supplier PCFs or EPDs | Scope 3 category 1, PCF |
| Inbound and outbound transport | Delivery notes, logistics invoices, distances and modes | Scope 3 categories 4 and 9, PCF |
| Waste | National waste transport forms (UATF), contractor invoices | Scope 3 category 5, PCF |
| Production output | Production records by product line and month | PCF allocation, intensity metrics |
Choosing emission factors
We use the most specific factor that is available and defensible. Measured or supplier-specific values come first, for example the carbon content of your coal from laboratory analysis or a verified PCF from your aluminium supplier. National values come next, such as the country-specific factors in Turkey's national inventory report to the UNFCCC and the national electricity grid emission factor published by the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources. International sources fill the gaps, mainly the IPCC 2006 Guidelines, the UK government conversion factors and licensed life cycle databases such as ecoinvent.
Global warming potentials must come from one IPCC assessment report throughout the inventory. For market-based Scope 2, Turkish YEK-G guarantees of origin issued through EPİAŞ and I-REC certificates can be used if they meet the GHG Protocol quality criteria. We record every factor with its source, year and version, because factor changes are the most common reason a verifier asks for a restatement.
Verification readiness
Ekol Çevre is a consultant, not a verification body. Independent verification of a GHG statement is carried out under ISO 14064-3 by a body accredited to ISO 14065, in Turkey through TÜRKAK and in the EU through national accreditation bodies. We prepare you for that audit and stay with you through it.
Verifiers work to a level of assurance (limited or reasonable) and a materiality threshold, often 5% of total emissions for limited assurance. To pass, they need to sample any figure and follow it back to a source document. We hand over a GHG report, a calculation workbook with locked formulas and visible factors, an evidence index that links each input to its invoice or meter record, and a short GHG information management procedure that names who collects what. When the verifier raises findings, we draft the responses and corrections.
Installations covered by the Turkish ETS have a separate, mandatory verification of their annual emissions report by accredited verifiers under the ETS Regulation. That report covers direct installation emissions under rules set by the Climate Change Presidency (iklim.gov.tr). It does not replace a corporate inventory, but the fuel and process data should match, and we reconcile the two.
From footprint to reduction roadmap
A first footprint usually shows that a handful of sources make up most of the total. In Turkish manufacturing these are often grid electricity, natural gas for steam and process heat, and two or three purchased raw materials. We rank sources by size and by how much influence you have over them, then list concrete actions with an estimated reduction, cost range, owner and year.
Typical actions include on-site solar under the licence-exempt generation rules, renewable electricity backed by YEK-G certificates, waste heat recovery, compressed air and steam system repairs, switching refrigerants to lower-GWP alternatives, and asking the top suppliers for their own PCFs so that average database values can be replaced. If you plan to set a target with the Science Based Targets initiative, we align the base year, boundary and Scope 3 coverage with its criteria before submission.
Answering carbon data requests from EU customers
EU buyers ask Turkish suppliers for carbon data for different reasons. Their own Scope 3 inventory needs your emissions. Their SBTi target needs supplier engagement. Their CSRD report under ESRS E1 needs value chain data. Some sector programmes ask for PCFs in a set format. The requests look different, but most can be answered from one well-built dataset.
- Identify what is actually being asked: corporate emissions, emissions allocated to the customer's purchases, or a PCF per product.
- Check the method and format the customer specifies, for example PACT v3, a sector guideline such as Together for Sustainability for chemicals, or a supplier portal.
- Build or update your corporate inventory so the site totals are consistent.
- Allocate site data to the products the customer buys, using the PCR or allocation rule the customer accepts.
- Document the method, primary data share and data quality, and decide whether verification is needed before sharing.
CBAM is a separate case. Embedded emissions under the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism follow their own boundaries and monitoring rules, which differ from ISO 14067. The plant data overlaps, but the result cannot simply be copied from a PCF. See our CBAM consulting service for that work.
How a carbon footprint project runs
- Scoping and data request (about 1 week). We agree the standard, boundary, reporting year and outputs, and send a data request in Turkish and English.
- Site visit and data collection (2 to 4 weeks). We walk the process, check meters and invoices and interview the people who hold the data.
- Methodology note (about 1 week). A short document fixing boundaries, allocation rules and emission factor sources, agreed with you before calculation.
- Calculation and internal review (2 to 3 weeks). We calculate, run plausibility checks against production and energy intensity, and review uncertainty.
- Report and management procedure (1 to 2 weeks). GHG report or PCF study report, calculation workbook and evidence index.
- Verification support (4 to 8 weeks, set by the verifier). We answer the verifier's requests and close findings.
A single-site corporate inventory covering Scopes 1 and 2 typically takes 4 to 6 weeks before verification. Adding a full Scope 3 screening adds 3 to 6 weeks. A first cradle-to-gate PCF for one product family usually takes 6 to 10 weeks, and less when a corporate inventory already exists.
What drives cost and timeline
- Number of sites and legal entities inside the organisational boundary.
- Scope 3 depth, from a spend-based screening to supplier-specific data for the main categories.
- Number of products and how many share the same production lines.
- State of your records, especially sub-metering and purchase data by mass rather than value.
- Whether third-party verification or critical review is required, and its level of assurance.
- Output formats, such as a GHG report, a customer template, a PACT data set or an EPD.
Why a Turkey-based team helps
Most of the evidence a verifier wants to see in a Turkish plant is in Turkish: gas and electricity invoices, waste transport forms, environmental permits, production records. We read it directly, visit sites from our offices in İzmir, Ankara and Kocaeli, and talk to plant staff in their own language. That cuts the back-and-forth that slows down projects run from abroad.
We also know the local inputs that change results, including the national grid factor, YEK-G certificates, Turkish ETS obligations and the reporting duties under TSRS. The outputs are written in English for your EU customers, auditors and head office.
Related services
A carbon footprint often feeds other work. Corporate inventories are the climate core of ESG and sustainability reporting, and product footprints are the starting point for an EPD. For exporters of steel, aluminium, cement, fertilisers or hydrogen to the EU, CBAM embedded emissions draw on the same plant data.