IBM Product Carbon Ledger

Core Features

IBM Product Carbon Ledger is designed around traceability and auditability: sustainability claims remain connected to the transactions and evidence from which they originate. Its modular, cloud-native architecture allows organizations to deploy its Biofuel and RFNBO capabilities independently or together and connect them with existing enterprise systems. Key capabilities include:

• Rolling Mass-Balance Management: The Biofuel module maintains rolling quarterly mass balances across purchasing, production and sales, matching renewable purchases with production outputs and sales positions.

• Transaction-Level Chain of Custody: PCL tracks renewable materials, certificates, sustainability declarations, product movements and associated records from origin through customer delivery, maintaining the underlying evidence trail needed for verification.

• Sustainability Declaration Management: Organizations can manage Proofs of Sustainability and sustainability declarations alongside the transactions to which they relate, reducing reliance on separate spreadsheets and manually managed documents.

• RFNBO Evidence Management: The dedicated RFNBO module tracks time-correlated renewable electricity and supports evidence concerning electricity origin, additionality and geographic correlation, linking production events with their compliance records.

• Enterprise System Integration: API-based connectivity enables PCL to exchange information with ERP, commodity trading and risk management (CTRM) and plant systems. IBM also offers Product Carbon Ledger for SAP Solutions, providing an auditable system of record across supply-chain activities.

Closing Insights

IBM Product Carbon Ledger extends IBM’s enterprise technology portfolio into renewable-product traceability and compliance. Its focus is narrower than conventional carbon-accounting software: PCL is designed to preserve the evidence behind sustainability claims as renewable materials move through purchasing, production, logistics, trading and sales. IBM currently provides dedicated Biofuel and RFNBO modules, which can be deployed separately or together. The platform supports RED III alignment, ISCC compliance and regulatory reporting requirements.

The outlook for PCL centres on expanding this compliance infrastructure as renewable-product requirements evolve. IBM describes the cloud-native platform as designed for continuous enhancement, including future sustainability use cases and AI-assisted workflows. Its API-based architecture connects with ERP, CTRM and plant systems, while IBM Product Carbon Ledger for SAP Solutions extends the concept into SAP environments.