ABSTRACT
The environmental impact cost for products and services are intended to be used to indicate which of the two alternatives is most sustainable in everyday choices between product or service alternatives. The guiding principles of ISO 14008 are accuracy, completeness, consistency, credibility, relevance and transparency. The completeness principle concerns several issues in the determination of monetary values of emissions and use of resources: which emissions and resources to include, and which environmental goods and pathways to include. The standard methodological approach may not be the best choice. However, in order to be able to explain the methodology to a large audience of users, consistency is favored, even if there are genuine reasons for an alternative approach in a specific situation. Transparency is created by making all data and calculations traceable, and also through simplification and consistency. The ISO 14008 Standard is a framework standard and includes definitions of terms, guiding principles, planning, doing and reporting.
