See where emissions really are
For many manufactured goods, a large share of the footprint sits in purchased materials or in product use, outside the company’s own sites. An LCA makes it visible.
Enter a year of activity data for each life-cycle stage, with the supplier and the document that proves each quantity. Choose where your operations are: the factor library, impact method and reporting rules follow the US (GHG Protocol, EPA) or México (RENE). Each line is converted to kilograms of each greenhouse gas, characterised to tonnes of CO₂e, and rolled up by scope, category, stage and supplier.
A life cycle assessment (LCA) measures the environmental impact of a product across its whole life: from extracting the raw materials, through manufacturing, transport and use, to what happens when it is thrown away or recycled. It adds up what goes in (materials, energy, water) and what comes out (emissions, waste) at every stage, and turns them into impact indicators.
The method is set by ISO 14040 and ISO 14044. When an LCA looks at climate change only, the result is a carbon footprint in kg of CO₂-equivalent (ISO 14067), which is what CO2Trace calculates.
Why the study is done, the functional unit, and which stages and processes are in.
In CO2Trace: Goal and scope →Collect the activity data for each stage (kWh, litres, kg, tonne-km) with the documents behind them.
In CO2Trace: Activity ledger →Convert each gas into CO₂e with IPCC global warming potentials.
In CO2Trace: Impact method →Find the hotspots, check completeness and consistency, and decide what to change. It feeds back into every phase.
In CO2Trace: Dashboard and Checks →For many manufactured goods, a large share of the footprint sits in purchased materials or in product use, outside the company’s own sites. An LCA makes it visible.
A lighter material can cut transport emissions but raise production emissions. Looking at the whole life shows whether a change is a real improvement.
Mexico’s RENE, Scope 3 under the GHG Protocol and California’s SB 253, the EU carbon border tax (CBAM) and buyers asking for EPDs all need emissions figures you can trace back to a source.
Claims such as “low-carbon” or “30% less CO₂” need a documented study behind them (ISO 14021, ISO 14067). Without one, they read as greenwashing.
Follow a fictional sparkling mineral-water bottler in San Antonio, Texas, that fills returnable glass bottles. Its emissions split almost in thirds across the three scopes. Scroll to play each step.
Enter the company and year, choose the functional unit (what the footprint is expressed per) and where you operate. The country sets the factors, the GWP method and the reporting rules. Then fill in Goal and scope: why you’re doing the study and what is left out.
Pick an example or use your own data →Add one line per activity in each life-cycle stage: kilograms of glass bought, cubic metres of gas, kWh from the electricity bill, tonne-kilometres of freight. Pick the activity and type the quantity; the factor and the scope fill in on their own.
Go to the ledger →Open Evidence on a line and attach the invoice, bill or manifest behind the number. A reviewer then marks it verified. Coverage is weighted by emissions, so the big lines count most.
What evidence do I need? →Totals by scope, stage, supplier and month update as you type. Here the three scopes are close: 33% direct (bottle washer, boilers, route trucks), 32% electricity and 35% value chain (glass, cases and freight).
Go to the dashboard →The Checks list flags what a verifier would ask about. Copy the results as CSV for Excel, or in México the RENE summary for the COA. The full video is at the end of the page.
Watch the full video →Every number in the ledger should trace back to a document. This is what a verifier will ask for, by type of activity. The examples come with fictional sample documents so you can see what each looks like.
Pick a company to see its footprint. Each is a fictional US business with a year of activity data, of a different size and industry. Scroll down to explore its dashboard.
Upload the bills, invoices and manifests. CO2Trace reads each document, fills its ledger line, checks it against the reporting year and assembles the report. You only review and sign.
Drag in bills, invoices, bills of lading and manifests, as PDFs or photos.
It pulls out the quantity, unit, period, supplier and reference, and fills the right line.
Missing months, figures that don’t match and out-of-period documents are flagged before a verifier sees them.
Inventory, product footprint and evidence pack, ready to print or send.
Built from the ledger and the evidence on this page. Automatic document reading arrives with company accounts; until then, enter the quantity and attach the file.
Every line goes through the same formula. Factors keep each gas separately, so switching the GWP method recalculates everything without re-entering data.
Emission categories group lines by source type (materials, fuels, electricity, refrigerants, transport, waste and water), so the same category can appear in more than one scope. Each line also records the months its activity took place; its emissions are spread evenly across those months to build the monthly profile in the Gantt chart, so enter separate lines for seasonal bills if you need month-level accuracy.
Attached files are stored only in this browser on this device and are not uploaded anywhere, so keep the originals in your document system.
CO2Trace · carbon accounting and life cycle assessment
Every plan includes scheduled expert reviews: two a month on Small and Medium, three on Large. An LCA and GHG specialist goes through your data and evidence with you on a video call.
Prices in US dollars before tax. Accounts and billing open soon; create your account to save your place.
CO2Trace grew out of GHG inventory and certification work in industrial parks in México, where carbon numbers lived in spreadsheets with no trail back to their source. We built it so every figure carries its factor, its source and its document.
We picture supply chains where every company reports its footprint with evidence, and buyers, regulators and investors can rely on it without redoing the math.
From the first supplier to end of life, under US (GHG Protocol) and Mexican (RENE) rules, with cited factors and the document behind each quantity.
What is measured well can be reduced. We want teams to spend their time cutting emissions, not chasing receipts or defending spreadsheets.
Blue Mesa Sparkling Water from start to finish: the setup, goal and scope, the first ledger lines, an electricity bill attached and verified, the dashboard and its charts, the checks and the export.