What’s the product carbon footprint of your bestselling product?
If a major retailer or eco-conscious investor asked, could you give them a clear, verifiable answer? Without a product carbon footprint (PCF) software, manually measuring product-level emissions across entire portfolios is tedious and error prone.
With stricter regulations and growing consumer demand for carbon transparency, rough estimates aren’t enough anymore. Companies now need audit-ready emissions data at the product level. As such, PCF software has gone from a nice-to-have to a must-have.
Beyond compliance, calculating product carbon footprints also gives companies a competitive advantage. Lower-carbon products appeal to today's consumers, supply chain decarbonization opportunities become more evident, and sustainability claims hold up under scrutiny.
There’s no longer a question of equipment. The challenge is now about choosing the right software. To help you decide, we’ve analyzed the best PCF software solutions based on industry fit, compliance, ease of use, scalability, and transparency.
Before we get into the top picks, let’s look at what PCF software is and how to choose the right one for your business.
Product carbon footprint software measures the total greenhouse gas emissions linked to a product, throughout its entire lifecycle, from raw materials to disposal (also known as cradle-to-grave).
It’s a useful tool for responding to reporting requirements such as those imposed by SBTi and CSRD. It provides detailed carbon assessments and helps identify carbon hotspots, making it a good choice for companies focused on tracking, reporting, and reducing their product-level carbon footprint
While PCF software is often confused with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) software, the two serve different purposes. PCF vs LCA, what’s the difference? LCA looks at the product’s full environmental impact, including water use and land use (a total of 16 environmental indicators), while PCF software focuses only on CO2 emissions.
Further reading: Understanding LCA at scale
Not all PCF softwares work the same way. Some are designed for specific industries, while others take a broad approach, serving multiple sectors. The right choice depends on your business needs, but a few key factors matter across the board.
Now let’s look at our top PCF software options for 2025.
Let’s take a closer look at each software.
Carbon Maps is a SaaS sustainability software for the food industry that delivers audit-ready product carbon footprint data. It tracks emissions across a product’s entire life cycle from raw agricultural ingredients to end-of-life, giving businesses actionable insights to effectively measure, track, and reduce their environmental impact at the product-level.
Automate your PCF calculations and save time
Calculating a product’s carbon footprint manually is time-consuming and leaves room for error. Carbon Maps automates PCF calculations following ISO 14067 and GHG Protocol standards, making sure businesses can trust their emissions data for reporting requirements.
The platform also provides a clear summary of total product emissions, making it easier to track carbon intensity per product and identify areas for improvement in agricultural practices, recipe composition, packaging, and supplier selection.
Pinpoint your biggest emission sources
Knowing a product’s total emissions is one thing, but understanding where those emissions come from is another. The PCF software breaks footprints down at the ingredient, product and supplier levels, making it easier to see where the highest emissions come from.
The product category breakdown helps businesses identify which types of products contribute the most to their overall footprint. For example, a dairy brand could analyze emissions across different product categories, such as milk, cheese, and yogurt, to determine which has the highest impact.
With this level of granular insight, companies can focus on implementing carbon reduction strategies where it matters most.
Turn sustainability into a sales advantage
Beyond being a compliance necessity, a product’s carbon footprint also connects to sales and profitability.
Carbon Maps calculates carbon intensity per kilogram sold, helping businesses identify which products within the portfolio contribute most to emissions and where improvements need to be made.
This data also creates market opportunities. As demand for sustainable products grows, brands can use low-carbon offerings to stand out, attract eco-conscious consumers, and meet corporate sustainability goals.
A great example is Burger King and La Vie’s partnership. We hosted a webinar where they discussed their collaboration and shared how a plant-based offering is impacting an organization’s overall footprint. Watch the webinar to learn more.
Provide trustworthy data that stands up to scrutiny
Carbon footprint data is only useful if it holds up under scrutiny.
The PCF software ensures businesses can confidently report emissions by providing audit-ready, fully traceable data that meets global industry standards, such as ISO 14067 and the GHG Protocol.
If regulators or certification bodies request verification of footprint calculations, businesses can provide a transparent breakdown that supports their declarations, reports or claims.
The platform also supports SBTi reporting by helping businesses track their trajectory for emissions reductions and align with their climate commitments.
Adapts to any level of climate maturity
No access to primary supplier data? No problem. Carbon Maps has a database of over 34,000 emission factors and expertise in building custom models to create reliable Product Carbon Footprints (PCFs) with whatever data you have available.
The product carbon tool works with both industry averages and supplier-specific inputs, adjusting to your level of climate maturity, allowing you to achieve varying degrees of granularity.
As you gather more primary data, you can refine your PCFs automatically over time, enabling continuous improvement to your sustainability journey.
Tracks Scope 3 emissions
Product-related Scope 3 emissions, such as ingredient sourcing and supplier impact, are often the hardest to track. The platform captures these emissions at the ingredient level, helping businesses automate supplier sustainability assessments and assess the carbon footprint of their raw materials.
Generates PCF reports instantly
Businesses need credible, shareable carbon footprint data for clients, investors, regulators, stakeholders, and even your B2B prospects. Carbon Maps includes a Carbon Quotation Tool that generates easy-to-share PCF reports, making sustainability data more accessible and actionable.
User-friendly interface
The PCF software features a thoughtfully designed interface that transforms complex emissions data into clear, visual insights.
With intuitive navigation and interactive displays, non-expert business users can easily explore a product’s carbon footprint. They can quickly identify key emission hotspots across the product’s life cycle, assess the impact of its composition, check the data source and identify supplier opportunities for improvement.
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Sweep is a corporate carbon accounting software that helps businesses track and manage emissions across their entire organization. As a horizontal tool, it serves companies across various industries rather than specializing in one sector.
Provides PCF calculations
While Sweep includes product carbon footprint calculations, it positions them within a broader ESG and corporate carbon accounting framework. Rather than focusing exclusively on product-level emissions, the platform helps companies integrate PCF data into their overall sustainability strategy.
This makes it a good fit for businesses that want to track emissions across their entire value chain while maintaining some product-level footprinting capabilities.
Supplier emissions monitoring
Just like Carbon Maps, Sweep allows businesses to collect emissions data from supply chain partners, making it easier to assess Scope 3 impact across different suppliers, materials, and processes.
For companies operating across multiple industries and regions, this feature helps identify where supply chain emissions are highest and where improvements can be made.
Compliant reporting support
The platform enables companies to align with global carbon reporting frameworks. Businesses can generate audit-ready ESG reports that meet corporate sustainability and compliance standards.
Businesses seeking to comply with ESG reporting requirements alongside basic product-level footprinting capabilities.
HowGood is a sustainability intelligence platform that provides ingredient-level impact assessments for the food industry.
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Ingredient-level assessment
HowGood allows businesses to assess the environmental impact of ingredients in their supply chain. Companies can compare emission intensities between sourcing options to make informed decisions about ingredient selection.
Automated PCF calculations
The PCF software provides automated product carbon footprint calculations, following recognized global standards, including the GHG Protocol and ISO 14067. However, the depth of analysis depends on ingredient data availability.
Food companies that need deep, ingredient-level sustainability insights.
Carbonfact is a carbon management platform specifically designed for the fashion industry, focusing on apparel, luxury, and footwear brands.
Automated Fashion Industry PCF Calculations
The PCF software calculates emissions across all stages of a product’s lifecycle, from raw material extraction to end-of-life. This helps fashion brands assess which production steps contribute the most to their footprint.
Emissions assessment
The platform provides comprehensive carbon accounting for Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions based on GHG Protocol standards
Hotspot analysis
Carbonfact highlights high-impact materials and processes, allowing businesses to identify where they can reduce emissions within their supply chain.
Fashion and footwear brands that need product-level carbon footprint tracking.
Altruistiq primarily targets businesses in retail, logistics, food & beverage, and fashion & textile industries.
Provides tailored PCF and carbon insights
As a PCF software, it offers customizable dashboards and analytics tools that allow businesses to browse, filter, and visualize data easily, highlighting specific opportunities for reducing environmental impact.
Automated data collection
The platform connects with business systems to automatically gather and process emissions data. This reduces the need for manual data entry and streamlines carbon footprint calculations, especially for companies dealing with large amounts of data.
Supplier data for Scope 3 emissions
Altruistiq includes a supplier portal that lets businesses collect direct emissions data from suppliers. This can improve the accuracy of Scope 3 emissions tracking by relying on actual supplier data rather than estimates.
Large enterprises with complex, multi-faceted carbon reporting needs across diverse business operations.
The best PCF software depends on a company’s specific needs, but for businesses needing precise, audit-ready product-level carbon tracking, Carbon Maps stands out. Unlike broader carbon accounting tools, it focuses on detailed emissions breakdowns at the ingredient, supplier, and category levels.
This level of granularity makes it particularly useful for companies that require verifiable, transparent emissions data for compliance, reporting, and carbon reduction strategies.
A Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) focuses only on greenhouse gas emissions associated with a product throughout its lifecycle, from raw material extraction to disposal. It is commonly used for carbon reporting, compliance, and emissions reduction planning.
A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) takes a more comprehensive approach, evaluating multiple environmental impacts beyond carbon, such as water and land use. Simply put, a PCF is one part of LCA.
LCA is also the scientific foundation and methodological basis for the European Union's Product Environmental Footprint (PEF), which provides a standardized set of impact categories.
For businesses in the food industry looking to extend their PCF analysis into a full LCA, Carbon Maps offers full Life Cycle Assessments that follow ISO 14040 and 14044 standards, the foundation for all LCAs.
A PCF methodology is a systematic approach for calculating the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of a product across its life cycle.
The process of calculating PCFs follows internationally recognized standards to ensure consistency and reliability. Some of the most widely used methodologies include:
ISO 14067 is an international standard that outlines the principles, requirements, and guidelines for calculating and reporting a product’s carbon footprint. It ensures that emission assessments are consistent, transparent, and verifiable, making it a key reference for companies needing audit-ready carbon footprint data for regulatory requirements and sustainability reporting.
Ready to track and reduce your product carbon footprints at scale? Book a demo with Carbon Maps to see how you can simplify your sustainability efforts with sustainability solutions built for the foodindustry.
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