How much does a product carbon footprint cost?

What you are paying for

• Data collection: gathering materials, energy bills and transport. Usually the biggest effort, and mostly your own time.
• Method and expertise: choosing boundaries, factors and allocation, and writing the report.
• Database licences: commercial emission factor databases are licensed, and that cost is passed on.
• Review: an independent critical review, needed for public comparisons, adds a separate fee.

Consultant studies

A consultant-led life cycle study is thorough and tailored, and typically priced in the thousands of euros per product, with weeks of elapsed time. One published price list starts a single study at €6,000. That suits a flagship product or a public comparison, but not a range of hundreds.

Self-serve tools

A tool that does the standards work lets you footprint a product in minutes, from a product link or your own data, and pay per finished footprint. The data you collect is the same; the method, factors, checks and report are built in. That makes it realistic to footprint a whole catalogue rather than one product. See footprinting a whole catalogue.

Keep the cost down

• Start with the products your biggest customers buy most.
• Collect a year of energy bills once and reuse it across products.
• Begin with a screening estimate and add your own data where it changes the answer.

The hidden cost: your team's time

Whichever route you choose, someone in your company gathers the bill of materials, the energy bills and the production figures. Organise this once: a shared sheet with materials per product and energy per process per year makes every later footprint faster and cheaper.

Tools save time on the method, factors, checks and report, but not on finding your own data. Start with data you already keep for invoices and production planning.

Compare like with like

• Does the price include the report and PACT file, or only a number?
• Are database licences included?
• Is it per product or a subscription, and how many products do you have?
• Is an independent review included, and do you need one?

What to prepare before you compare product carbon footprint costs

The more of this you have ready, the quicker any provider can quote, and the less you pay for someone else to chase it. Use it as a checklist before you ask anyone for a price.

• A product list with names, materials, percentages and weights, so a provider can see the scope of work.
• The customer request itself: which products, which unit, which boundary and which file format.
• Energy bills for a recent year, split by site if you have more than one factory.
• Production volumes for the same period, so energy can be shared between products.
• Supplier details for your main fabrics or components, in case you can ask them for their own data.
• A named person in your team who owns the data and can answer questions.

Budgeting for your first customer request: a walkthrough

Say a brand asks for footprints for a handful of styles it buys from you. Before choosing a route, check what you already hold. Most suppliers find they have materials and weights from their tech packs, and energy bills from accounts.

Next, decide what kind of figure the request needs. If the brand will use it in its Scope 3 inventory, a cradle-to-gate footprint with a report and a PACT file is the usual ask. If the brand plans to publish a comparison, an independent review may be needed, and that changes the budget.

Then price the options against the same scope. A screening estimate for every style, followed by deeper work on the bestsellers, is often cheaper than a detailed study for a single item. Finally, count your own time honestly. Whichever route you take, that part does not go away, so organising your data well is the cheapest saving available.

It also helps to ask the brand how it will use the figures. A buyer filling a Scope 3 inventory needs consistency across products more than a deep study of one. A buyer planning a public statement needs more. Knowing this up front stops you paying for work the request does not need.

Common misunderstandings about product carbon footprint cost

• "The price is for the calculation." The arithmetic is quick. You are mostly paying for method, factors, documentation and, if needed, an independent review.
• "Each product costs the same to footprint." Products that share fabric, a factory and energy data get cheaper to do as a group, because the inputs are reused.
• "Spending more always gives a better figure." The figure improves when your own data goes in. A costly study built on averages is not more precise than a modest one built on your bills.
• "It is a one-off cost." Footprints are updated when materials, suppliers or energy change, so plan for refreshing them, not just creating them.
• "A free estimate is enough to send." A screening estimate shows the size and the main stages. Most buyers want your own data in it before they rely on it.
• "Software removes the need for any expertise." It builds in the method, but someone still needs to understand the inputs, check what was read and answer the buyer's questions. Our methodology page explains the choices a tool makes on your behalf.
• "Cost should be judged per product only." Look at the cost of the whole range you need to cover, and of keeping it current, not just the price of the first footprint.

Our pricing

We charge per finished footprint, with no subscription and no sales call, and a free estimate first. Launch prices for your region go out by email: join the waitlist or see how pricing works.

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