The carbon footprint of everything

This paper explores the potential of widespread and reliable information on the greenhouse gas emissions associated with any good or service or the activities of any firm – in short, the carbon footprint of everything. It considers what having information on the carbon footprint of everything would mean for climate action, what building blocks would need to be in place to achieve this, what it would take to put these building blocks in place, and how far we are from measuring a carbon footprint of everything. Better carbon footprint data can help focus mitigation efforts. Many of the necessary building blocks are falling into place, and further efforts by public and private actors can help remove remaining obstacles. These efforts should be proportional (balancing precision and resource requirements), promote innovation and competition, and interoperable, making sure that initiatives are based on common foundations and build interfaces to allow data sharing.