🌍 TrueCost | Automated Lifecycle Sustainability Pipeline

BeachHacks 9.0 Submission | Developed by Elena Marquez and Mark Garcia

TrueCost is an asynchronous data-aggregation platform that tracks, computes, and visualizes the hidden environmental footprint and corporate ethical scores of consumer goods. Users submit an Amazon URL or text prompt to generate comprehensive lifecycle profiles and live supply chain routing.

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🛠️ Architecture & Core Pipeline

Advanced Implementation Features

• Concurrence Reconciling: Engineered a high-throughput backend via FastAPI[cite: 1]. Synchronous, blocking third-party network wrappers (wikirate4py, geopy) are offloaded to an asynchronous isolated ThreadPoolExecutor to optimize loop efficiency alongside native async IO (httpx).
• Deterministic Fallback Hierarchies: Built a string-matching taxonomic fallback algorithm that maps irregular, scraped Amazon product categories into standardized industrial classification codes to guarantee stable matches inside environmental indices.
• WebGL Data Visualization: Built an asynchronous 3D spatial ledger using react-globe.gl over a WebGL canvas to translate coordinate vectors into real-time dynamic transportation arcs plotting leg-specific carbon equivalents ($CO_2$), geographical distances, and logistics transit times.

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💾 API System Matrix

Dependency / Integration	Purpose & Programmatic Functionality
Rainforest API	Extracts unstructured Amazon e-commerce metadata parameters (dimensions, materials, parent-brand ownership).
Climatiq API	Computes precise $CO_2$ equivalent emissions by matching product dimensions with international emission datasets.
WikiRate API	Extractions corporate transparency parameters (Clean Clothes scores, Fashion Revolution index, gender pay gap).
Cohere AI	LLM orchestrator utilizing structured JSON schemas to dynamically output reasonable logistics path chains.
Geopy / Nominatim	Performs reverse geocoding on supply chain waypoints to calculate bounding lat/long vectors.

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🔮 Future Roadmap

• Comparison Engine: Side-by-side comparative ledger to evaluate alternative products concurrently.
• Browser Extension: Client-side DOM parsing to inject predictive sustainability scores during live browsing.
• Cumulative Ledger Tracking: Relational user schemas to log historical purchase data and track personal carbon footprints over time.