What is the "Other" facility data?
Beyond the core utilities (electricity, water, heat, refrigerants), your facilities consume other resources that also have an environmental footprint. Root tracks four additional types of facility-level data:
Goods & Services — Purchased goods and services used at the facility.
Logistics Packaging — Packaging materials used for shipping and logistics.
Consumables — Materials consumed during facility operations.
Residual Waste — Waste generated at the facility that needs to be disposed of.
Each of these is recorded as a contract linked to a specific facility and time period, just like utilities.
Goods & Services at facilities
What it covers
Goods & Services records track the items and services your facilities purchase — things like office supplies, IT equipment, cleaning services, consulting, or maintenance contracts.
How to add data
You can add Goods & Services data by uploading a file or entering it manually. For each record, you provide:
The facility where the goods or services are used.
The item or service name — Selected from your company's Goods & Services list (or created automatically during upload).
The quantity consumed and its unit.
Whether it is a capital good — Mark as "yes" for durable assets like machinery or equipment, and "no" for regular goods and services. This affects GHG scope allocation.
The time period — Start and end date.
Actual or estimate — Whether the data is measured or estimated.
Expenditure-based vs mass-based data
Goods & Services is the only place in Root where you can use expenditure-based (monetary) data. While all other data types — materials, consumables, packaging, utilities — require physical units (kg, kWh, m³, etc.) and are matched to mass-based or energy-based impact factors, Goods & Services accepts any unit, including currencies like EUR or USD.
This is possible because Root includes the Exiobase database, which provides impact factors expressed in kgCO₂e per euro of expenditure. When you enter a Goods & Services item in EUR and match it to an Exiobase dataset, the calculation is straightforward: amount in euros multiplied by the emission factor per euro.
When to use expenditure-based data:
When physical consumption data is not available — for example, if you only have invoices for a cleaning service but don’t know the exact quantities of chemicals used.
For broad categories of purchased services (consulting, IT services, catering) where mass-based data is impractical to collect.
As a starting point when onboarding, to get a first estimate of your footprint while you work on collecting more granular data.
Capital goods
The capital good flag is important for GHG reporting. Capital goods (e.g. production equipment, vehicles, IT infrastructure) are reported under Scope 3.2, while regular purchased goods and services fall under Scope 3.1.
Status
A Goods & Services item is "complete" when it has an impact dataset assigned and all necessary unit conversions are in place. See the [Goods & Services Matching](#) article for details on how to match items to datasets.
Logistics Packaging at facilities
What it covers
Logistics Packaging tracks the packaging materials used at your facilities for shipping and logistics — boxes, pallets, shrink wrap, labels, and other transport packaging.
How to add data
You can upload logistics packaging data via a file. For each record, you provide:
The facility where the packaging is used.
The packaging material name — Matched to your company's packaging materials list (or created automatically during upload).
The mass in kilograms.
Supplier name and address (optional).
The time period — Start and end date.
Actual or estimate — Whether the data is measured or estimated.
Status
A logistics packaging record is "complete" when the underlying packaging material has an impact dataset assigned. See the [Packaging Materials Matching](#) article for details.
Upload behavior
When you upload logistics packaging data for a facility and year, all existing packaging contracts for that facility and overlapping period are replaced with the new data.
Consumables at facilities
What it covers
Consumables are materials used up during facility operations — things like cleaning agents, machine lubricants, replacement filters, or laboratory chemicals.
How to add data
For each consumable used at a facility, you create a contract with:
The facility where the consumable is used.
The consumable — Selected from your company's consumables list.
The quantity consumed and its unit.
The time period — Start and end date.
Actual or estimate — Whether the data is measured or estimated.
Notes (optional).
Status
A consumable is "complete" when both its direct impact dataset and its end-of-life impact dataset are assigned, and all necessary unit conversions are in place. See the [Consumables Matching](#) article for details.
Residual Waste at facilities
What it covers
Residual waste tracks the waste generated at your facilities that needs to be disposed of — things like general waste, paper waste, plastic waste, food waste, or hazardous waste.
How to add data
For each type of waste generated at a facility, you create a contract with:
The facility where the waste is generated.
The waste name — A description of the waste type.
The amount of waste (typically in kilograms).
The impact dataset — The disposal or treatment method (e.g. landfill, incineration, recycling). You must select this at the time of creation.
The time period — Start and end date.
Actual or estimate — Whether the data is measured or estimated.
How residual waste differs from other types
Unlike other facility data types, residual waste requires you to select the impact dataset at the time of creation rather than in a separate matching step. Each waste record directly references a specific waste treatment dataset.
Actual vs. estimate data
Across all four types, you can specify whether the data is actual or estimated:
Actual — The quantity is used directly in calculations.
Estimate — The quantity is multiplied by the facility's total product mass to scale the estimate to the facility's output.
How impact is distributed over time
For all four types, the impact is distributed evenly across the months covered by the contract period. For example, if a contract runs from January to December with 1,200 kg of waste, Root allocates 100 kg per month.
Tips
Mark unused categories as "not used." If a facility doesn't generate residual waste or use consumables, mark those categories as "not used" in the facility details so the facility is still considered complete.
Set the capital good flag correctly for Goods & Services. This determines whether emissions are reported under Scope 3.1 (purchased goods) or Scope 3.2 (capital goods).
Use actual data when available. Estimates are a good starting point, but actual measurements provide more accurate results.
Watch for upload replacements. Uploading new Goods & Services or Logistics Packaging data for a facility replaces all existing data for that overlapping period. Make sure your upload file contains the complete dataset.