Life cycle-based analyses are considered crucial for designing product value chains towards lower carbon emissions. We have used data reported by companies to CDP for public disclosure to build a database of 866 product carbon footprints (PCFs), from 145 companies, 30 industries, and 28 countries. We used this database to elucidate the breakdown of embodied carbon emissions across products’ value chains, how this breakdown varies by industry, and whether the reported emission reductions vary with the granularity of the PCF. For the 866 products, on average 45% of total value chain emissions arise upstream in the supply chain, 23% during the company’s direct operations, and 32% downstream. This breakdown varies strongly by industry. Across their lifecycle, the 866 products caused average total emissions of 6 times their own weight, with large variation within and across industries. Reported achievements to reduce emissions varied depending on whether a company had reported a PCF’s breakdown to life cycle stages or only the total emissions (10.9% average reduction with breakdown versus 3.7% without). We conclude that a sector-level understanding of emissions, absent of individual PCFs, is insufficient to reliably quantify carbon emissions, and that higher reported emission reductions go hand in hand with more granular PCFs.

Product carbon footprints (PCFs) are playing an increasing role in decisions around sustainability for companies and consumers. Using data reported to CDP, we have previously built a dataset of 866 PCFs, from 145 companies, 30 industry groups, and 28 countries, showing trends of how upstream and downstream emissions vary by industry and how life cycle assessment (LCA) appears to aid companies in achieving steeper carbon reductions through improvements throughout a product’s value chain. Here, we present the greenhouse gas emissions and respective meta data for every product in this dataset. The Carbon Catalogue provides each product with name and description, PCF (in kg CO₂e) and the respective LCA protocol/standard, product weight, as well as the name, industry, and country of incorporation of its manufacturer. For a subset of 421 products, the Carbon Catalogue further includes the PCF’s reported breakdown into two to nine separate stages of the product’s life cycle. For another subset of 250 products, the Carbon Catalogue includes how the respective PCFs changed and why the changes occurred.

Building electricity is a major component of global energy use and its environmental impacts. Detailed data on residential electricity use have many interrelated research applications, from energy conservation to non-intrusive load monitoring, energy storage, integration of renewables, and electric vs. fossil-based heating. The dataset presented here, Multifamily Residential Electricity Dataset (MFRED), contains the electricity use of 390 apartments, ranging from studios to four-bedroom units. All apartments are located in the Northeastern United States (IECC-climate-zone 4 A), but differ in their heating/cooling system and construction year (early to late 20^th century). To adhere to privacy guidelines, data were averaged across 15 apartments each, based on annual electricity use. MFRED includes real and reactive power, at 10-second resolution, for January to December 2019 (246 million data points). The annual average real power per apartment is 343 W (3.27 W/m² of floor area), with strong variation between seasons and apartment size. Considering its large number of apartments, high time resolution, real and reactive power, and 12-month duration, MFRED is currently unique for the multifamily-sector.

Redox flow batteries have shown great potential for a wide range of applications in future energy systems. However, the lack of a deep understanding of the key drivers of the techno-economic performance of different flow battery technologies—and how these can be improved—is a major barrier to wider adoption of these battery technologies. This study analyzes these drivers and provides an extensive comparison of four flow battery technologies, including the all-vanadium redox (VRB), iron–chromium, zinc–bromine, and polysulfide–bromine flow batteries, by examining their current and projected techno-economic performances. We address the potential for performance improvements and resulting cost reduction by developing a component-based learning curve model. The model considers the near-term learning rates for various subcomponents of each of the four battery technologies as well as their technological improvements. The results show that (i) both technological improvements in the performance parameters as well as mass production effects could drive significant cost reductions for flow battery systems; (ii) flow battery systems could be cost-effective in a variety of energy system applications in the near future; and (iii) from a techno-economic perspective, VRB systems are more suitable for the applications that require low energy and high power capacities.