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Two concepts are essential for interpreting any product climate footprint: the waste hierarchy and LCA system boundaries. The waste hierarchy ranks approaches to managing materials at end-of-life. System boundaries define which stages of a product’s life are actually included in an LCA calculation. Together, they determine what a climate impact figure really means — and whether two figures can legitimately be compared.

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The waste hierarchy

The waste hierarchy is an ordered list of preferred approaches to managing materials, from most to least environmentally desirable:
  1. Prevention — avoid creating waste in the first place
  2. Reuse — use the product or material again without reprocessing
  3. Recycling — break down and reprocess material into new products
  4. Recovery — extract energy from waste (e.g. incineration with energy recovery)
  5. Disposal — landfill as a last resort
The waste hierarchy underpins EU waste legislation and influences how end-of-life scenarios are modelled in PEF-compliant LCAs. Choices made during product design — such as selecting mono-materials or designing for disassembly — directly affect where a product’s end-of-life falls on this hierarchy.

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LCA system boundaries

System boundaries define how many life cycle stages are included in an LCA. Three terms are widely used in environmental communication:
Includes all life cycle stages, from raw material extraction through to end-of-life — including recycling back into a new product life cycle. This is the most comprehensive system boundary and reflects the logic of a circular economy.
Includes all stages from raw material extraction through to final disposal (landfill or incineration). It accounts for use and end-of-life but does not credit the material back into a new cycle.
Includes only the stages up to the factory gate — raw material extraction, processing, and production. It excludes packaging, transport to customer, use phase, and end-of-life. Commonly used in business-to-business supply chain reporting.

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Why this matters when comparing numbers

A Cradle to Gate result will always appear lower than a Cradle to Grave result for the same product — not because the product is more sustainable, but because fewer stages are counted.
When you encounter a climate impact figure for a product, always ask: “How did you get this result?”Without knowing the system boundary, you cannot meaningfully compare two numbers — even for identical products from different suppliers.

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System boundaries in Målbar

Målbar follows PEF methodology, which requires a full lifecycle approach: from raw material extraction through production, distribution, use, and end-of-life. This means your calculations consistently use the same system boundary, making results comparable across products and suppliers who also use PEF.
When you are evaluating supplier-provided environmental data, check whether their figures use the same system boundary as your Målbar calculations. A Cradle to Gate figure from a supplier will need to be supplemented with use-phase and end-of-life data before it can be used in a full PEF assessment.

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Download the illustration

Waste hierarchy illustration (PDF)

Download the Målbar Academy visual explainer for the waste hierarchy and LCA system boundaries.