Textile eco-score: the 5 best tools to calculate it in 2026 (Ecobalyse, Glimpact and others)

The textile eco-score market has taken shape over eighteen months around five tools. Ecobalyse is free and official, Carbonfact scales up calculations for large catalogues, Fairly Made starts with traceability, Glimpact promotes the European method, Simapro remains the ISO LCA reference for technical cases. None handles the entire textile environmental labelling process alone.

Because the real challenge is not calculating a score, which the official method and Ecobalyse do well, but knowing who should calculate it for which products, how often, with which supplier data and for which publication. Each tool answers a different part of the question. Here are the profiles, comparison table and decision matrix.

1Ecobalyse: the free, official foundation

Developed by ADEME and the General Commission for Sustainable Development, hosted on Beta.gouv, with public source code on GitHub. Available at ecobalyse.beta.gouv.fr. It is the public tool applying the method in the order of 6 September 2025: if you want to display an official score in France, this is where it starts.

Its strengths

Free, official, transparent. Four questions, a score in minutes, public formulas. Sixteen PEF indicators with French specificities (plastic microfibres, textile waste exports) and the durability coefficient (0.67 to 1.45) penalising fast fashion. The conceptual foundation everyone in the sector must know how to use, including brands also paying for SaaS.

Its limitations

Designed to simulate a product, not manage a catalogue. Form-based UX, manual entry product by product, no ERP or PIM integration. No benchmarking against similar products, no multi-user workflow, no versioning, no advanced CSR collaboration. For 50 products, it works. For 5,000, it is unmanageable.

2Carbonfact: the platform for large catalogues

French start-up founded in 2022, Paris, several million euros raised, mainly fashion and footwear clients. In two years Carbonfact has established itself as the reference for brands needing to keep catalogues with thousands of products up to date.

Its strengths

Built on the official Ecobalyse API: the same score, the same regulatory compliance, with a platform designed for scale. ERP and PIM integration, CSV imports, multi-user validation workflows, versioning, automated publication on product sheets and physical labels. A distinctive advantage: a free benchmark comparing your score with hundreds of similar products in Carbonfact's database. Seeing that a cotton T-shirt scores 1,200 Pts when the market median is 850 changes the internal conversation.

Its limitations

Prices are not public, provided by quotation according to the number of products, data and supply chain complexity, chosen modules and subscription duration. It is an investment, not an impulse purchase. Based on Ecobalyse, it inherits the French durability coefficient: for a brand selling only in Germany or Italy, this is effort spent away from the need. It does not solve supplier mapping in depth: the tool makes entry easier but does not collect data for you.

3Fairly Made: supply chain traceability first

French platform founded in 2017, Paris, specialising in fashion and textiles. The oldest in this selection. A radically different positioning from the others: traceability before the score. Visible clients: Etam, Camaïeu, Pimkie, several French groups.

Its strengths

The premise: without a precise supply chain map, no tool can produce a reliable score. Fairly Made starts with sourcing: identifying tier 1, 2 and 3 suppliers (garment manufacturers, weavers, spinners, growers), certifications, audits, standardised questionnaires with response rate monitoring. The LCA score emerges almost as a by-product. It incorporates the AGEC law and French decree, and prepares for the European textile DPP. It also publishes consumer pages (QR code on the label), making it a marketing as well as CSR tool.

Its limitations

Oversized for a brand whose supply chain is already mapped and that just wants to score at scale. In that case, Carbonfact is more direct. Fairly Made excels when traceability is the real barrier, rather than calculation. The choice depends entirely on your starting position, not budget.

4Glimpact: a bet on the European method

Belgian-French platform. Takes a deliberately different approach: the pure European PEF method rather than Ecobalyse, without the French durability coefficient. Flagship product: European Global Impact Score. Known clients: Decathlon, Carrefour, Celio, Mars (not just textiles: the platform also covers food).

Its strengths

A rational bet on European convergence. If the European method selected under ESPR moves towards pure PEF, a possible but undecided scenario, you might as well start there. A second advantage: applicability across sectors. Textiles, food, cosmetics, packaging on the same platform. For a multi-activity group such as Carrefour, one tool for every business. Real added value for consolidated group reports and a European perspective.

Its limitations

Not compliant with the French decree as currently worded. The French method changes weighting (freshwater ecotoxicity raised to 21%, human toxicities to 0) and adds criteria (microfibres, waste exports, durability coefficient) not included in pure PEF. Displaying a Glimpact score on clothing also requires displaying the environmental cost. If you sell in France and want to display the official score, you will also need Ecobalyse or Carbonfact. Glimpact is a complement, not an alternative. Major retailers with both run Carbonfact for France and Glimpact for European management.

5Simapro: ISO LCA for expert cases

The long-established option. PRé Sustainability, Netherlands. The reference tool for consultancies and manufacturers needing to deliver a complete ISO 14040 LCA. GaBi (Sphera, Germany) plays in the same category. Not designed for a fashion brand refreshing its range every three months: designed to model a technical product or battery pack in detail, from A to Z, with any system boundary.

Its strengths

Total flexibility. Uses life cycle inventory (LCI) databases such as ecoinvent, with tens of thousands of processes available for modelling. An LCA practitioner can build a bespoke model for any product, any functional unit. Alongside GaBi, it is one of the most widely used software packages behind LCAs published in scientific or regulatory reports.

Its limitations

Annual licence €5,000 to €15,000, a learning curve of several weeks, UX from another decade. This is not a tool for on-the-fly use in a marketing department: it is a service purchased from a consultancy equipped with it. Relevant only for B2B technical textiles (high-performance sport, military uniforms, professional equipment) needing to deliver a standardised LCA to customers with CSRD requirements or a manufacturing DPP.

6The comparison table

Six criteria to position each tool at a glance: French compliance, European compliance, supplier data collection, scaling, price, target users. The star ratings summarise three years of Celsius field experience on textile projects.

The trap made visible by the table: no tool solves supplier data collection. Free or paid, you must obtain the dyeing factory's energy mix, the cotton's exact origin, the spinning process type and the transport mode between each stage. Three to six months of work for a first thorough map. This is where 80% of the effort concentrates, rather than in choosing SaaS.

7Which tool for which brand: the decision matrix

The choice depends less on budget than on the question you are trying to solve. Five typical profiles, five recommendations. The matrix we use on Celsius projects when a brand asks where to start.

8Key takeaways

• Ecobalyse is the baseline. Free, official, transparent, sufficient for a first pilot. Everyone must know how to use it, even brands also paying for SaaS
• Carbonfact, Fairly Made and Glimpact do not replace Ecobalyse: they automate it (Carbonfact), complement it with traceability (Fairly Made) or offer an alternative European perspective (Glimpact). The right tool depends on your question, not budget
• Simapro remains out of the running for most fashion brands. It remains essential for consultancies producing ISO LCAs for technical textiles or CSRD reports
• The real cost lies in data, not software. Three to six months of supplier data collection, 80% of project effort, between €15,000 and €80,000 for a first well-scored catalogue
• The Bpifrance Diag Éco-conception funds 60 to 70% of the process for SMEs. Too few brands use it

From 1 October 2026, if a brand does not display its clothing's environmental cost, a third party (distributor, NGO, app) can calculate and publish it without its consent. It is better for the score published on your products to be yours, and the process (tool selection, supply chain mapping, entry, benchmarking, publication) takes several months. So open Ecobalyse this evening, launch a pilot on your bestseller and see what it tells you. The real cost is doing nothing.

Further resources

Frequently asked questions

1What is the best tool for calculating a garment's eco-score?

There is no absolute best tool. Ecobalyse is the best option for a brand starting out or with fewer than 200 products: free, official, sufficient. Carbonfact becomes the best choice once the catalogue exceeds 500 products and publication must be automated. Fairly Made is the best choice when supplier traceability is the real barrier. Glimpact is the best choice for brands operating across European markets. The right tool depends on your context, not an abstract ranking.

2Is Ecobalyse enough to comply with environmental labelling?

Yes, if you choose to display it. Ecobalyse applies the method set by the order of 6 September 2025; display remains voluntary. If your catalogue is limited and your CSR team has time to enter products individually, you do not need paid SaaS. In practice, beyond a few hundred products, the absence of ERP integration and multi-user workflows makes Ecobalyse alone difficult to manage, and SaaS built on it (typically Carbonfact) becomes essential.

3How much does SaaS such as Carbonfact or Fairly Made cost?

Prices are not public and depend on product volume, activated modules and service level: only a quotation gives the actual price. Added to this is the cost of the process itself (data collection, configuration, training): €15,000 to €80,000 in the first year depending on supply chain complexity.

4Do you need to choose between Ecobalyse and the European method?

Not today. The European textile environmental labelling method should be decided in the ESPR textile delegated act, expected around 2027. Meanwhile, Ecobalyse is the compliant method in France, and several corroborating sources suggest it will provide the basis for the European method. Brands operating across markets and wanting to prepare often use a pure PEF tool such as Glimpact alongside Ecobalyse, rather than instead.

5Can you use several tools at once?

Yes, and this is even common among major retailers. Typically: Ecobalyse or Carbonfact for French compliance, Fairly Made for supply chain traceability, and Glimpact for European group reports. Tools can generally export and import data in standard formats, limiting technological lock-in. The decision mainly concerns the combination's overall cost and potential duplication of work.

6Is an ISO 14040 LCA mandatory for environmental labelling?

No. The textile environmental labelling decree relies on Ecobalyse, a simplified LCA method rather than a complete ISO 14040 LCA. An ISO LCA remains useful in two cases: meeting customers' requirements for technical textiles, and supporting product data in CSRD reporting, which does not require an LCA. No textile DPP is in force to date. In these cases, a consultancy equipped with Simapro or GaBi does the work.

7Are free tools as reliable as paid ones?

For the score itself, yes. Ecobalyse applies the method set by the order of 6 September 2025, taking PEF categories with French adaptations, and its public source code allows every calculation to be checked. Paid tools provide usability at scale (workflows, ERP integration, benchmarking, automated publication), rather than better calculation reliability. In other words: you do not pay for accuracy; you pay for scaling.

8Which tools calculate a textile eco-score in 2026?

The market is organised around 5 tools. Ecobalyse, developed by ADEME and the General Commission for Sustainable Development, is free and applies the method set by the order of 6 September 2025. Carbonfact, built on Ecobalyse's official API, scales up calculations for large catalogues. Fairly Made starts with supply chain traceability. Glimpact applies the European PEF method without French specificities and cannot display the official score alone. Simapro, ISO LCA software, mainly serves consultancies working on technical textiles. None removes the need to collect supplier data, accounting for 80% of the work.

9Are eco-scores comparable between tools?

Yes, between Ecobalyse and tools built on its API, such as Carbonfact, which produce the same score. Glimpact applies the pure European PEF method, without the criteria added by the French method: specific weighting (increased ecotoxicity, human toxicities at 0), microfibres, textile waste exports and a durability coefficient between 0.67 and 1.45. Its results therefore cannot be directly compared with the official French score. An ISO 14040 LCA carried out in Simapro uses boundaries and a functional unit specific to each study. Every communication must specify the method used.

10Which tool should you start with if you have never calculated an eco-score?

Ecobalyse for a first pilot: the tool is free, official and its formulas are public. Start with your flagship product to see what the score reveals, then expand. Ecobalyse remains manageable up to around 200 products; beyond that, SaaS built on it such as Carbonfact becomes useful. Most work involves supplier mapping (cotton origin, dyeing energy, transport), taking 3 to 6 months and concentrating 80% of the effort. For an SME, Bpifrance's Diag Éco-conception can fund 60 to 70% of this initial process, with €5,400 to €7,200 excl. VAT payable.

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