What is the End of Life section?
Every product eventually reaches the end of its useful life — it gets recycled, sent to landfill, incinerated, or otherwise disposed of. This disposal process has an environmental impact. The End of Life (EOL) section in Root lets you define what happens to your product after use, so that this impact is included in the product’s overall footprint.
How End of Life works in Root
End of Life is handled at the product level. For each product, you select a single impact dataset that represents the end-of-life treatment process. This dataset contains the environmental impact data for that type of disposal (e.g. recycling, landfill, incineration).
The EOL impact is then calculated based on the product’s mass and the number of units sold.
Like Usage, End of Life is an optional feature. Your company administrator can enable or disable it in the company settings. If EOL is disabled, the section will show an “out of scope” message.
How to set up End of Life for a product
Step 1: Open the End of Life section for a product
Navigate to a product and open its End of Life tab. You’ll see the current status:
Complete — An impact dataset has been selected. Ready for calculations.
Incomplete — No dataset has been assigned yet.
Out of scope — EOL has been disabled in your company settings.
Step 2: Select an impact dataset
Search for and select an impact dataset that matches the expected end-of-life treatment of your product. The dataset library contains options for various disposal methods, such as:
Recycling processes (by material type)
Landfill disposal
Incineration (with or without energy recovery)
Mixed waste treatment
Select the option that best represents what typically happens to your product at end of life.
Step 3: Done
Once a dataset is assigned, the product’s EOL status changes to “complete” and Root includes the disposal impact in the product’s total footprint.
How impact is calculated
Impact = EOL dataset impact factor × product mass × number of products sold
Root multiplies the dataset’s environmental impact by the total mass of all products sold during the reporting period. The product mass is derived from the bill of materials (BOM).
Proxy products
If a product is a proxy, it inherits its End of Life dataset from the source product. You cannot change the EOL on a proxy — navigate to the source product to make changes.
Removing an End of Life dataset
You can remove a previously assigned dataset at any time. This will set the product’s EOL status back to “incomplete” and exclude the EOL impact from calculations.
GHG scope allocation
End of Life emissions are always allocated to Scope 3.12 (end-of-life treatment of sold products). There are no dependencies on facility type or other settings — every product’s EOL impact goes to the same scope category.
This category covers the emissions from waste treatment and disposal of your products after they have been used and discarded by the end customer. It applies regardless of the disposal method (recycling, landfill, incineration, etc.).
Note that EOL must be enabled in your company settings for these emissions to be included in your footprint. If EOL is disabled, no Scope 3.12 emissions will appear in your GHG report.
Tips
One dataset per product. Unlike consumables (which need two datasets), End of Life requires only a single dataset selection.
Choose the most representative treatment. If your product is made of mixed materials, select the disposal method that applies to the product as a whole.
Check company settings if you see “out of scope.” EOL can be enabled or disabled at the company level under Settings.
Product mass matters. EOL impact is calculated using the product’s BOM mass, so make sure your bill of materials is complete for accurate results.