Over the past month, we introduced new capabilities designed to help companies plan their decarbonization strategies with more precision, streamline data ingestion, and integrate durability into their impact assessments. Here’s why these updates matter.
Evaluating Decarbonization Strategy ROI
One of the biggest challenges companies face when planning sustainability initiatives is balancing impact with cost. Our latest update introduces cost tracking for emission reduction initiatives in our scenario modeling tool.
Now, when you create an initiative – whether it’s switching to renewable energy, electrifying heating, or any other action—you can specify its cost in any currency. This allows you to assess the total cost of a modeled scenario and compare the Return on Investment (ROI) in terms of CO2 reduction per dollar spent.
Why does this matter? Because sustainability efforts often come with trade-offs. Some initiatives may be highly effective but expensive, while others may offer lower costs but a smaller reduction in emissions. By making these trade-offs explicit, businesses can prioritize the most cost-effective initiatives and allocate resources more efficiently.
AI-Powered Unstructured Data Imports
Data inconsistencies are a major roadblock for brands trying to track their carbon footprint. Often, material composition data comes from various sources—ERP, PLM, or supplier documents—without a standardized structure. This results in manual work, errors, and delays in getting actionable insights.
To solve this, we’ve introduced AI-driven parsing for material composition data during imports. If material information is stored in a single, unstructured cell (e.g., “50% Cotton, 50% Polyester”), our system can now automatically break it down into structured data, ready for life cycle assessments and carbon accounting.
For cases where the pattern isn’t consistent, the system highlights inconsistencies, allowing users to make quick corrections before finalizing the import. This significantly reduces the time and effort required to clean and process product data, making sustainability reporting more seamless than ever.
Bringing Durability and Repairability into Product Footprints
The environmental impact of a product isn’t just about how it’s made—it’s also about how long it lasts. That’s why we’ve incorporated durability and repairability factors into our Product Footprint calculations as per the PEFCR Apparel & Footwear.
Products now have an Intrinsic Durability Multiplier, based on test scores from PEFCR-aligned standards like ISO 6330 and ISO 16322. This ensures that products designed to last longer are given appropriate credit in carbon impact calculations. Additionally, our new Repairability Multiplier adjusts a product’s footprint based on whether repairs are feasible, considering factors like spare part availability, repair cost, and selling price.
These updates allow brands to see not just the total carbon footprint of a product but also its impact per wear—a crucial metric for circular fashion strategies. Encouraging durability and repairability is one of the most effective ways to reduce environmental impact, and now brands can quantify these benefits directly within Carbon Trail.
These latest updates are all about making sustainability planning smarter, faster, and more actionable. By integrating cost into scenario modeling, automating messy data imports, and refining durability-based impact calculations, we’re empowering brands to make data-driven decisions that align with both their business and sustainability goals.
