What material coverage means in Pickler

Product footprint calculations start with a simple question: what is the product made of? For companies in apparel, non-food, packaging and disposables, the answer is rarely one material. Products can include plastics, paper, textiles, coatings, rubber, foam, metal, glass, wood, inks, adhesives and other components. Pickler uses IDEMAT records to help translate those product materials into carbon footprint, eco-cost and lifecycle-stage impact results.

This article gives a practical overview of the material coverage available in Pickler. It is not meant as a complete database export or a promise that every specialised material has an exact one-to-one match. It is meant to show the breadth of material groups that can be used as a foundation for calculating product impact across varied portfolios.

A broad material base for real product portfolios

Pickler’s IDEMAT-based mapping is useful because many companies do not sell simple single-material products. A clothing item can include textile fibres, leather, rubber, foam, metal fasteners and packaging. A non-food product can include plastic, stainless steel, coatings, electronics-related materials and transport packaging. A disposable product can include paper, plastic, bioplastic, fibre, coating and end-of-life assumptions. A packaging product can include board, ink, liner, plastic film, aluminium, glass or labels.

That is why material coverage matters commercially. If a footprint platform only supports a narrow set of materials, it becomes difficult to scale beyond one product category. Pickler’s material mapping gives companies a broader starting point, so teams can calculate product footprints across more of the catalogue and improve the data over time.

Examples of materials that can be represented

The list below gives an impression of the types of material groups available through Pickler’s IDEMAT mapping. The exact record used in a calculation depends on the product data, the material specification and the available evidence.

• Plastics and thermoplastics: HDPE, LDPE, LLDPE, PP, PET, PVC, PS, ABS, PC, PA 6, PA 66, PMMA, POM, PTFE and engineering plastics for containers, films, housings, trays, household goods and technical parts.
• Recycled plastics: rPET, rPE, rPP, rPVC and average recycled plastic records for products with recycled content, recycled packaging, containers, films and plastic components.
• Biobased and biodegradable plastics: bio-PE, bio-PP, bio-PET, PLA, PHA, PBS, PBAT, cellulose polymers and other materials used in compostable products, films, trays, cups, bags and disposable items.
• Paper, board and fibre-based materials: kraft liner, testliner, fluting, folding boxboard, solid board, moulded fibre, bamboo paper, sanitary paper and paperfoam for boxes, cartons, trays, tissue products, protective products and fibre-based disposables.
• Textiles, leather and fibres: wool, clean wool, greasy wool, leather, aramid, carbon fibre, glass fibre and synthetic fibre-related records for apparel, footwear, bags, accessories, protective clothing and textile-based products.
• Rubbers, foams and flexible materials: natural rubber, EPDM, NBR, SBR, silicone rubber, EVA, PUR flexible foam, PUR rigid foam and related materials for footwear, seals, gaskets, cushions, insulation, sports products and protective components.
• Wood and plant-based materials: oak, pine, spruce, birch, walnut, bamboo, cork, MDF, plywood, particle board and other wood-based materials for furniture, panels, pallets, interiors, accessories and household products.
• Metals: steel, stainless steel 304 and 316, aluminium, copper, zinc, tin, brass, nickel and neodymium magnets for cans, frames, fasteners, tools, machinery, electronics, durable goods and product components.
• Glass and ceramics: virgin and recycled glass bottles, borosilicate glass, silica glass, porcelain, stoneware, alumina, silicon carbide, zirconia and technical ceramics for bottles, jars, tableware, cookware, tiles, labware and durable products.
• Chemicals, coatings, inks and additives: acids, solvents, pigments, printing inks, surfactants, fertilisers, sodium hydroxide, titanium dioxide, carbon black, coatings and formulation inputs for printed, coated, cleaned, coloured or chemically treated products.
• Energy, heat and transport: electricity mixes by country, coal, gas, wind, hydropower, PV, industrial heat, truck, train, air and sea transport records for modelling production energy and logistics.
• End-of-life routes: recycling, incineration, co-firing, landfill, composting and material-specific waste treatment assumptions for modelling what happens after use.

Why this is useful for apparel

Apparel and textile products often combine multiple material types. A shoe can include leather, rubber, foam, textile, adhesive, metal parts and packaging. A bag can include textile, leather, plastic components, zippers, coatings and labels. Pickler’s broad material mapping helps teams calculate these products more realistically than a generic “textile” or “accessory” category would allow.

This is especially useful when teams want to compare material choices, such as leather versus synthetic alternatives, virgin versus recycled components, or different fibre and packaging options. The result is not only a carbon number, but a clearer view of which materials and lifecycle stages drive impact.

Why this is useful for non-food products

Non-food portfolios often include a wide range of simple and moderately complex products: household items, tools, accessories, furniture, storage products, office items, toys, garden products and consumer goods. These products can combine plastics, metals, wood, glass, rubber, coatings and packaging. Pickler’s material coverage makes it easier to calculate impact across this kind of mixed catalogue.

For commercial and sustainability teams, this matters because customer questions often arrive at product level. A buyer may not ask for a full LCA report; they may ask which product has the lower carbon footprint, what drives the impact or whether a recycled-content alternative performs better. Material-specific mapping helps answer those questions more credibly.

Why this is useful for packaging and disposables

Packaging and disposable products are strongly material-driven. Small differences in material type, weight, recycled content, coating, ink, fibre source or end-of-life route can change the result. Pickler’s IDEMAT records cover common packaging and disposable material groups such as paper and board, moulded fibre, plastics, recycled plastics, bioplastics, glass, metals, inks, coatings and sanitary paper.

This makes Pickler useful for comparing product alternatives such as paper versus plastic, virgin versus recycled material, reusable versus single-use products, or fossil-based versus biobased plastics. It also helps teams understand that the best choice depends on the full product context, including weight, production, transport and end of life.

The practical takeaway

The material coverage behind Pickler is one of the reasons it can support product footprint calculations at scale. IDEMAT gives Pickler a broad secondary data foundation across many materials and lifecycle processes. Pickler then combines that database with customer product data, mapping rules, defaults and data quality tracking.

For customers, this means they can start calculating product impact for many different product types without building an LCA database themselves. The more specific the material data, the stronger the result. But even when perfect supplier data is not available, Pickler can create a transparent and improvable calculation using mapped records, visible assumptions and data quality indicators.