TARGETED and practical enhancements are required to the Product Guarantee of Origin (PGO) scheme, the Australian Logistics Council says, to support “a credible, transparent framework”.
The federal PGO shows where a product has come from, how it was made, and its emission intensity during its life cycle.
In a submission to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), the ALC argued the PGO scheme’s current emphasis on transparency, traceability and non-prescriptive reporting was appropriate, but its effectiveness would be enhanced by a phased and flexible approach to capturing broader lifecycle emissions—including transport, aggregation and pre-treatment.
“Low-emissions fuels are critical to decarbonising Australia’s freight sector, particularly for longhaul operations where electrification remains limited,” ALC chief executive Hermione Parsons said.
“To be effective, the PGO scheme must reflect the operational realities of freight and fuel supply chains, including the significant role transport and logistics play in overall emissions.”
She said Australia’s freight system operated across vast distances with complex supply chains.
The ALC submission notes that excluding emissions beyond the farm gate risked overlooking a material portion of lifecycle emission.
Recommendations from the ALC submission include:
Maintaining a transparent, non-prescriptive framework that supports multiple fuel pathways across all freight modes.
Introducing a staged and flexible pathway to incorporate broader lifecycle emissions — including transport, aggregation and pre-treatment.
Maintaining flexibility in feedstock treatment, while enabling market-informed differentiation of residues, wastes and purpose-grown crops.
Supporting a tiered approach to emissions factors, combining simple default values with the option for verified supplier-specific pathways where appropriate.
Maintaining DLUC, ILUC and soil carbon as transparent certificate attributes, using simplified and comparable approaches.
Ensuring alignment with broader policy and demand-side mechanisms, including procurement frameworks and fuel incentives.
The ALC also supports treating direct land use change (DLUC), indirect land use change (ILUC), and soil carbon as certificate attributes using “simplified, comparable approaches”.
“The PGO scheme has the potential to play a critical role in enabling market confidence and supporting emissions reduction,” Dr Parsons said.
“By taking a phased, flexible and operationally grounded approach, the framework can deliver credible emissions transparency without imposing impractical regulatory burdens.”
ALC’s submission emphasises that positioning enhancements as optional or staged pathways will ensure broad participation across the supply chain, supporting investment while maintaining the sector’s productivity and resilience.