Pathways

Inspiration

One of our teammates used LCA software in class and spent more time figuring out the tool than understanding her product's impact. That stuck with us.

Carter's and brands like them commission lifecycle assessments and get back a PDF. Nobody acts on it because the recommendations don't come with a price tag, and no exec deprioritizes margin for a sustainability report. We built Pathways to fix that.

What it does

Pathways lets your internal team run an LCA without an expert in the room.

You answer plain-language questions about your product. Missing data gets collected automatically through targeted one-question emails sent to the right teammate. Anything the team can't fill in gets auto-completed by AI with a confidence rating so you know what to trust.

Then Pathways shows you where your footprint is coming from and suggests specific fixes, with the CO2e savings and dollar impact shown side by side. On a Carter's OshKosh onesie 6-pack, Pathways identified a 43% CO2e reduction opportunity worth $1.4M in annual savings. Swap a material or switch a supplier and watch both numbers update instantly.

How we built it

React, Tailwind, Claude API, Climatiq API, Resend API.

Challenges we ran into

Making LCA feel simple without being wrong. ISO 14040/14044 methodology is genuinely complex and we had to make all of it invisible without cutting corners on accuracy.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The team data collection flow. What normally takes weeks of spreadsheet emails now happens through a single targeted request that populates directly into the model.

What we learned

LCA tools exist for experts. Nothing exists for the product manager who has real data access but no methodology background. That is who Pathways is for, and that is the gap the market has not closed.