Ecomatters developed the Coatings Eco footprint tool which calculates eco footprint of cans of paint. With the use of industry-aligned LCI datasets, the tool calculates an extensive overview of the most important environmental impacts related to the components included in the paint recipe. The tool is freely available for use for approximately 85% of all coatings companies in Europe.

The CEPE eco footprint tool has provided a way to make our LCI Project accessible to our SME and non LCA expert community. It has so far attracted around 200 users from all countries in Europe. Ecomatters has delivered a high quality product that fitted our requirements and fulfills the needs of our members.

– Emilie Carasso, Sustainability Issue Manager

The project

In response to the increased demand for product information within the coatings industry, CEPE — the European coatings trade association — initiated a CEPE Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) project. This created a database that now contains 300 raw materials that are representative for the entire industry. In order to allow LCA experts as well as the wider organization, including R&D and marketing, to quickly utilise LCA results, CEPE commissioned the customization of the Ecomatters Eco footprint tool.

The Eco footprint tool is a web application that:

• Allows coatings companies to calculate the environmental footprint of their product or service in a simple manner
• Provides a highly streamlined workflow to adjust the main model inputs
• Calculates an extensive overview of the most important environmental impacts, including energy and resource consumption, and emissions to air and water

The web-based tool calculates eco footprints in three simple steps:

1. Definition of the product
2. Adjustment of the process parameters
3. Extraction of the eco footprint as a document in MS Word or MS Excel format

This tool has become the industry standard for these calculations in the paint industry. The webtool has been used by 718 SME’s across Europe to analyse 1.417 products as of 6 September 2017. The tool is accessible via: ecofootprint.ecomatters.nl