What data can I add to Pickler?
In Pickler, every impact calculation begins with your product data—known as source data. This unique information forms the foundation for calculating the environmental impact of your packaging.
Product Details: Basic identifiers like product ID, name, category, weight, and codes (SKU or GTIN).
Bill of Materials: All materials in your product, with their weight or proportion.
Production Information: Details like production location, production method, energy mix, and energy use (heat or electricity).
Transport Information: Transport type (e.g., truck, ship) and distance.
End-of-Life Information: Disposal region and method (e.g., recycling, landfill).
Together, these fields calculate your product’s full lifecycle impact.
What data to focus on
Collecting all this data can be time-consuming, especially for details like energy use or transport routes. Gathering this information from suppliers takes effort, but you’re not stuck without it!
Pickler enables impact calculations even without complete data. We fill in gaps with default values, so you can start assessing environmental impact sooner, without waiting on every detail. This approach gives you actionable results quickly and without exhaustive data collection.
To bare minimum to start
All you need to create a product in Pickler is a product ID!
While this alone isn’t enough for calculations, uploading your product ID's together with sales data (including order numbers, dates, sales volume, and product IDs) opens up valuable opportunities. Knowing your top-selling products will help you focus your data collection efforts where they matter most.
Pickler's advice for data to start collecting
When you know what products you want to focus on, we advice to start with this data, which is enough to begin assessing impact.
Product Details: ID, Name, Category, Weight.
Bill of Materials: Materials in your product.
Production Locations: Production and warehouse locations.
How Pickler Fills Data Gaps with Default Values
Pickler makes impact calculations possible, even when some data is missing, by applying default values to fill gaps in your data.
These values are carefully designed to maintain accuracy and transparency, using a combination of predictive algorithms, automatic calculations, and conservative assumptions.
Predictive Algorithms: When some key information is available, Pickler applies default values based on predicted data. For instance, if the production location is known, Pickler can assign a default energy mix specific to that region, using market average values from IDEMAT. This way, the calculations are more accurate and aligned with realistic conditions in the production area.
Automatic Transport Calculations: If exact transport details aren’t provided, Pickler automatically estimates distances between locations and assigns likely transport types. For example, with a known production and warehouse location, Pickler calculates the average distance between them and assigns appropriate transport methods, like truck or container ship. This method enhances the accuracy of transport data by applying realistic estimates based on available locations.
Conservative Assumptions: When data cannot be reliably estimated, Pickler applies conservative defaults to ensure results remain realistic and avoid underestimations. For example, if the production location is completely unknown, Pickler uses the maximum possible transport distance—defaulting to 21,000 km by container ship and 1,000 km by truck. Similarly, if the energy mix is unknown, it’s set to a worst-case scenario, ensuring that impact calculations remain transparent and greenwash-free.
By blending these methods, Pickler’s default values let you move forward with your calculations, giving you actionable and realistic results, even without exhaustive data collection.
How We Prevent Greenwashing
Pickler uses conservative default values to ensure results remain realistic and prevent greenwashing. For example, if production location is unknown, Pickler assumes a maximum transport distance—21,000 km by ship and 1,000 km by truck. Similarly, an unknown energy mix defaults to a worst-case scenario.
With these reliable defaults, you can move forward confidently, knowing your calculations stay accurate and transparent.