The leading snowboarding brand moved from inconsistent supplier data to material-level cost and carbon insights that drive smarter product decisions across its entire line.
Burton has always known that climate action is core to its business—but turning ambition into decisions was hard without consistent, comparable carbon data. With Watershed Product Footprints, the team can now model emissions for purchased goods, run carbon-versus-cost scenarios without bespoke LCAs, and connect product-level changes directly to its corporate footprint—so every procurement and design decision moves the business forward.
CHALLENGE
Burton's complex global supply chain puts over 95% of its emissions in scope 3—but inconsistent supplier data and time-intensive LCAs made it nearly impossible to evaluate the emissions impact of product decisions with confidence. Without comparable, material-level data, procurement and design teams were stuck in analysis paralysis, unable to translate climate ambition into strategic action.
SOLUTION
Using Watershed Product Footprints, Burton piloted detailed product carbon footprints for hard goods—starting with low carbon-intensive plastics—without relying only on supplier-reported data. AI-powered production graphs break down each purchased good (material) into its inputs, letting teams compare nuanced differences between alternatives. The pilot demonstrated that Burton can scale this approach across its full product line: combining emissions data with cost data to evaluate tradeoffs side by side, and to understand how procurement and design changes ripple across the full corporate footprint.
RESULTS
Challenge
For Burton, climate change is business-critical. Snowboarding depends on reliable winters, and climate volatility threatens both ends of the business: customer demand and supply chains. With climate impacts already hitting close to home, the company has made climate a core part of its mission—but turning that mission into action is complex.
Holding the line on ambitious goals means wrestling with familiar challenges: how to stay rigorous on measurement without consuming the sustainability team's bandwidth, and how to move from climate ambition to real, strategic action across the business. "There's an opportunity—and a responsibility—to hold the line on our commitments," says Emily Foster, Director of Environmental & Social Impact. "But we can't get stuck in measurement. We have to move to action, and do it strategically."
With a complex product portfolio and global supply chain, more than 95% of Burton's emissions sit in scope 3, embedded in the materials and manufacturing behind every product. The most powerful levers for reducing those emissions are procurement and product design, yet those choices have always been hard to make with confidence because the carbon data needed to back them simply wasn't available.
“Altogether, the lack of consistent, comparable data left us flying blind on the climate impact of some of our biggest decisions around materials, suppliers, and product design.”
Emily Foster,
Director of Environmental & Social Impact
Burton had experience running lifecycle analyses (LCAs), particularly for hard goods, but these were time-intensive and limited in scope—often based on high/medium/low impact assumptions rather than product- or material-level specificity. Supplier data was also inconsistent and difficult to compare.
At the same time, suppliers were already under pressure to provide extensive reporting—from social audits to energy and chemicals data—making additional data requests impractical. “Our suppliers are already fatigued with non-climate data we ask for,” Foster says. “We don’t want to add another layer asking for product carbon footprints, especially when the data wouldn’t be comparable.”
The result was limited visibility into emissions drivers, and no scalable way to evaluate tradeoffs between carbon and cost when making product decisions.
Solution
Burton partnered with Watershed after searching for a platform that could deliver enterprise-grade footprinting with detailed insights, cover both hard and soft goods where LCAs aren’t feasible at scale, and model decarbonization. With Watershed Product Footprints, Burton can generate detailed product carbon footprints (PCFs) for every component of its products—without relying on supplier-reported PCFs.
Using AI-powered production graphs, Watershed breaks down each product into its underlying materials and processes, incorporating available data like bills of materials to capture real-world complexity. This enables consistent, apples-to-apples comparisons across materials and suppliers.
This kind of side-by-side view is what makes the tradeoff tangible: not just which material is lower-carbon, but what the impact of a switch across budget and corporate emissions would be. The data is illustrative, not drawn from Burton's actual procurement data.
Instead of building bespoke LCAs, teams can now:
The team first focused on plastics in its hard goods—one of the largest contributors to its footprint. “With Watershed Product Footprints, we can compare versions of plastics like Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU), nylon, and polycarbonate to understand the exact emissions and cost trade-offs of each,” Foster says.
This unlocked a new kind of decision-making: one grounded in both sustainability and business value.
“We removed the guesswork on carbon return on investment. By running scenarios for lower-carbon materials, we could support overall financial and operational planning.”
Emily Foster,
Director of Environmental & Social Impact
Beyond individual products, Burton can connect PCFs directly to its corporate footprint—simulating how changes at the material or supplier level affect total emissions and cost across the business.
Illustrative data, not from Burton’s actual procurement data.
This allows teams to prioritize the highest-impact changes and compare them against other decarbonization levers, like clean power or manufacturing changes.
Illustrative statistics, not draft from Burton’s actual procurement data.
“We need to place strategic bets and understand the impact of each—what’s the best carbon return on investment?” explains Foster. “We can’t just focus on one lever, and Watershed gives us the full picture so we know which ones to pull.”
Results
With Watershed embedded into workflows, Burton has shifted from fragmented analysis to confident, strategic action.
What once required manual modeling and weeks of work can now be done in minutes—enabling teams to quickly identify emissions hotspots and evaluate alternatives.
For the first time, procurement and product teams can assess emissions and cost together—making sustainability a practical input into core business decisions.
Using Watershed, the team identified a switch to recycled TPU that both reduces emissions and saves over $130,000.
Teams can focus their efforts on the most promising materials without casting too wide a net or overextending supplier engagement. “It helps us focus and accelerate exploration and decision-making,” says Foster. “We’re no longer guessing—we can back decisions with data.”
After rebaselining its footprint with a consistent methodology, Burton’s 2025 measurement revealed a 39% absolute reduction in scope 3 emissions from 2020—giving the team confidence in both past progress and future targets.
With Product Footprints, Burton has moved beyond measurement to action—embedding carbon into everyday product and procurement decisions. Its approach reflects a broader shift: from measuring emissions to managing them as a core business driver.
Instead of relying on incomplete or inconsistent data, teams now have a clear, scalable way to evaluate tradeoffs, prioritize interventions, and drive measurable reductions. “We’re thrilled to move forward instead of spinning our wheels with data that isn’t granular enough to make decisions,” Foster says. “And we need to—the urgency of climate action demands it.”
By tying carbon to cost and decision-making, Burton is proving that decarbonization can be both practical and strategic—unlocking more resilient supply chains, smarter product design, and real progress toward its goals.
“There's a real opportunity—and responsibility—here. Purpose-driven businesses like ours don't get to wait for perfect data or perfect conditions. We have to act strategically. With Watershed, we can see where our footprint lives, find the switches that reduce emissions and make financial sense, and build supply chains that are more resilient for whatever comes next. That's how we advance meaningful climate action.”
Emily Foster,
Director of Environmental & Social Impact