Eco-costs are used to represent the hidden environmental burden of a product across multiple impact categories. Unlike carbon footprint, which focuses on greenhouse gas impact, eco-costs can help compare broader environmental damage in one understandable indicator.

This is useful for product decisions because a lower carbon footprint does not always mean a lower overall environmental impact. Eco-costs help teams consider climate, resource use, human health and ecosystem-related impacts in a more complete way.

A product may have a relatively low carbon footprint but higher impact in other categories. Eco-costs can help reveal that trade-off more clearly.

Pickler provides eco-cost results alongside carbon footprint and eco-score so teams can compare products using a broader environmental lens.