Know the real price of what you buy.
EcoLens is a sustainability scanner built for Canadian shoppers. Scan a product, upload a receipt, or point your camera at a grocery shelf and instantly see the full picture: what it costs you, what it costs the planet, and what better options are nearby.
No jargon. No arbitrary green scores. Just honest numbers.
Point your camera at any barcode or product label. EcoLens identifies what it is, finds its real price across nearby stores, and gives it a sustainability score from 0 to 100. You also get the true cost: the shelf price plus the environmental damage priced in actual dollars.
Once a product is scanned, EcoLens finds greener or cheaper alternatives in the same category. Sort them four ways to find what matters to you:
- Greenest -- the most sustainable option, no compromises
- Cheapest -- lowest shelf price including the gas it costs to get there
- Sweet Spot -- the best balance of sustainability and price (this is the one we recommend)
- Planet Pick -- whichever product does the least environmental damage in dollar terms
Take a photo of any Loblaws, No Frills, or Real Canadian Superstore receipt and EcoLens analyses your entire basket. It flags your highest-impact items and suggests swaps that are better for your wallet and the environment.
EcoLens is not a generic green score. The numbers change based on who you are and where you live.
When you first open the app, it asks for two things: your postal code and your vehicle. That's it.
- Living in Quebec? Your electricity-related scores are much better than in Alberta, because Quebec's grid runs almost entirely on hydropower.
- The gas cost to reach a store is calculated using your specific car's fuel efficiency, not a rough estimate.
- Seasonal produce scores higher when it's actually in season in your province.
- Packaging scores reflect whether your city's recycling program can actually handle the material.
The same product can look very different depending on where you are. That's the point.
Every product gets three numbers:
| What it means | |
|---|---|
| Shelf Price | What the store charges |
| Gas Cost | What it costs to drive there, based on your car and the distance |
| Externality Cost | The environmental damage (carbon, water, packaging, land use) priced in CAD |
Add them together and you get the True Cost: what the product actually costs you and the world.
Carbon costs are based on Canada's published social cost of carbon. Water, packaging, and land use costs come from peer-reviewed environmental research. These are not made-up points. They are real numbers with real sources behind them.
EcoLens never guesses prices. If a verified price cannot be found, it shows as unavailable. Every number you see has a source.
| Framework | Next.js 16.1.6 (App Router) |
| Frontend | React 19, TypeScript 5, Tailwind CSS 4 |
| Deployment | Vercel |
| Google Gemini 2.0 Flash | Product identification, sustainability research, lifecycle analysis, real-time grounded pricing, fuzzy receipt matching, shelf batch identification |
| Cloudinary | Barcode detection, label OCR, receipt text extraction, multi-product shelf detection |
| Open Food Facts | Public product database, eco-scores, ingredient and packaging data |
| PC Express (Loblaw) | Verified live prices across Loblaws, No Frills, Real Canadian Superstore, Shoppers Drug Mart, and Zehrs |
| Google Maps Platform | Driving distance to stores, postal code geocoding |
| NRCan Open Data | Official Canadian vehicle fuel efficiency database for personalised gas cost calculations |
- Set up your profile first. The onboarding only takes a minute and it makes every score and cost you see accurate to your life. Skip it and you get generic numbers.
- Try the Sweet Spot sort. The greenest option is not always worth the premium. Sweet Spot finds where the score and price actually line up well.
- Scan receipts after a big grocery run. It's the fastest way to spot patterns in your shopping and find the one or two swaps that make the biggest difference.
- Use the shelf scanner in the pasta or cereal aisle. These categories have the most alternatives and the widest range of scores, so the overlay is most useful there.
Does it work outside Canada? Not yet. The pricing data, grid emissions, seasonal produce calendars, and recycling program data are all Canadian. Expanding to other countries is on the roadmap.
How accurate are the sustainability scores? Each score is built from real data: Open Food Facts eco-scores, Gemini-researched sourcing and certifications, and hyperlocal adjustments for your province. They are not perfect, but they are grounded in real sources rather than guesses.
Why does the same product score differently in two cities? Because the infrastructure is different. A product with recyclable packaging scores better in a city that actually recycles it. A product that requires refrigeration scores better where the electricity grid is cleaner.
What if a price is missing? It shows as unavailable. EcoLens does not fabricate prices under any circumstances.