Secondary data represents average or reference environmental data from databases, studies or recognised sources. It is often needed for upstream activities such as raw material production, energy mixes, transport or processing where supplier-specific data is incomplete.

Secondary data makes product footprinting scalable, but it should be used transparently. Better primary data can improve representativeness, while documented secondary data helps keep calculations possible and comparable across many products.

If a supplier cannot provide a specific footprint for a plastic material, a suitable secondary material dataset can be used as a practical starting point.

Pickler uses secondary data such as IDEMAT where relevant and helps distinguish between supplied product data, background data and assumptions.