How to track, reduce, and share your product’s carbon footprint

These days, saying your brand is “sustainable” isn’t enough. People want proof—and they want it to be easy to understand. Whether it’s customers, regulators, or partners, they’re all asking: what’s the real impact of this product?

Product carbon footprint (PCF) software helps you measure the actual carbon emissions tied to every product you sell. But to really make it work, you need solid product data behind the scenes. That’s where Inriver’s Product Information Management (PIM) solution comes in. It keeps all your product details organized, accurate, and ready to fuel your sustainability goals.

Let’s break it down: why PCF software matters, how it works, and why it’s only as good as the product data you feed into it.

• What is a product’s carbon footprint?
• Why product carbon footprint software matters
• Why carbon tools fail without solid product data
• How the Inriver PIM enables carbon footprint reporting
• Start small, scale fast

What is a product’s carbon footprint?

A product’s carbon footprint measures the total greenhouse gas emissions, including Scope 3 emissions, it generates over its entire life cycle, which includes everything from raw materials and production to shipping, use, and disposal.

Unlike company-level carbon accounting, which focuses on your business operations, a product-level footprint zeroes in on individual SKUs. This gives you the insights needed to make smarter design, sourcing, and marketing decisions—giving your customers a clearer picture of what they’re buying and turning emissions data into actionable product sustainability data.

Why product carbon footprint software matters

Calculating emissions for each product manually is tedious and error-prone. It’s like tracking calories without knowing what’s in your food. PCF software simplifies and automates the process using lifecycle data, emissions factors, and custom rulesets.

Here’s what that gets you:

Accurate sustainability reporting without the headache

Regulations worldwide are tightening, from the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) to future Scope 3 disclosures in the U.S. PCF software gives you clean, traceable emissions data that stands up to audits and public scrutiny.

Visibility into emissions hotspots

You get clear breakdowns of which parts of your product’s lifecycle are the most carbon-intensive—whether it’s a specific material, the manufacturing process, or how it’s transported. According to DFGE, clarity is key to creating targeted, effective sustainability strategies.

Smarter decision-making

Let’s say you’re choosing between two suppliers. One is slightly more expensive but uses renewable energy. With PCF software, you can see the carbon savings clearly and confidently make the right call.

Real transparency for customers

More and more, customers, especially Gen Z and Gen Alpha, want carbon data front and center. PCF software makes it easy to show your climate impact in a way that’s actually believable and backed by numbers.

Competitive edge

Brands that can show environmental progress don’t just avoid penalties—they stand out. PCF helps you market better, negotiate smarter, and stay ahead of industry shifts.

Why carbon tools fail without solid product data

Product carbon footprint (PCF) software is only as good as the information it’s given. The software can’t do its job properly if your product data is messy, incomplete, or scattered across different systems.

It’s like trying to bake a cake with half a recipe and mystery ingredients—you won’t get a good result.

Many businesses run into the same issues:

• Product specs are stored in outdated spreadsheets, buried in emails, or scattered across departments.
• Critical details like material composition, packaging weight, or supplier location are missing or inconsistent.
• Updates to product design or sourcing don’t automatically reflect in carbon calculations.

Without clear, connected product data for carbon footprint tracking, even the best carbon tools are stuck making assumptions—and that’s a fast track to inaccurate reporting.

That’s why having a Product Information Management (PIM) system like Inriver is essential. It’s the foundation that keeps your product details accurate, up to date, and ready to plug into your carbon tracking tools.

How the Inriver PIM enables carbon footprint tracking and reporting

The market-leading Inriver PIM gives organizations the right tools for thorough carbon footprint reporting on every product. It does this by:

Centralizing product data

Inriver becomes your single source of truth for all product-related data. Everything—from material details and dimensions to suppliers and packaging—lives in one place, and it’s always up to date.

Connecting supplier info seamlessly

Need to track Scope 3 emissions from raw materials? Inriver allows you to collect and attach supplier data to the product record. No more chasing PDFs or outdated spreadsheets.

Automating emissions calculations

You can set up automations so that every time a product is created or edited in Inriver, it triggers a calculation in your PCF software. That way, your carbon data is always fresh and aligned with the latest specs.

Publishing carbon data everywhere

Whether it’s your website, a digital catalog, or a B2B portal, Inriver pushes accurate carbon info wherever your product is displayed—so your sustainability message is consistent and credible.

Keeps everything audit-ready

Product records in Inriver track change over time, so you’ve got built-in version control and a clear audit trail if you ever need to show your work.

Start small, scale fast

You don’t need to transform your entire catalog overnight. Start with your top 20 products. Add carbon-relevant fields in the Inriver PIM. Connect to a PCF tool. Use the insights to make small but meaningful improvements.

Then keep going.

Before long, you’ll not only have a better understanding of your product footprints but also a real strategy to reduce them. And you’ll do it in a way that makes sense for your business, customers, and the planet.

With Inriver, you’re not starting from scratch. You’re starting from a place of data confidence, with a single, centralized platform built to support sustainability at scale.