What is a scenario?
A scenario is a what-if model for your supply chain. It combines one or more interventions, which are the specific changes you want to test, and calculates how those changes would affect your company's carbon footprint.
Each scenario is tied to a specific year and uses your actual data as the baseline: purchase orders, materials, transport routes, and facility utilities. The result is a view of your current footprint against your projected footprint if those changes were in place.
Example: You could create a scenario called "Sustainable materials 2026" that includes two interventions: switching your top product material to a recycled alternative, and moving your main shipping route from air freight to sea freight. The scenario calculates the combined effect on your footprint.
What is an intervention?
An intervention is a single proposed change within your supply chain. Interventions are the building blocks of a scenario. You create them individually and combine them into scenarios to model their total effect.
Three types of interventions are available:
Material intervention: Replace a material used in your products with an alternative. For example, swap conventional cotton for organic cotton across your T-shirt range.
Utility intervention: Switch a facility's energy or resource source. For example, move a warehouse from grid electricity to on-site solar, or change a heating source from natural gas to biomass.
Transport intervention: Change the transport mode on a shipping route. For example, switch a supplier route from air freight to sea freight for inbound deliveries.
Root calculates each intervention independently, so you can see the impact of a single change on its own. You can then combine multiple interventions into a scenario to see the total projected effect.
How to build a scenario
Step 1: Create your interventions
Go to Scenarios → Interventions in the left menu and click New Intervention.
Select the intervention type (Material, Utility, or Transport) and follow the guided steps.
For a material intervention:
Select the products affected by this change.
Choose the current material you want to replace.
Enter the name of the replacement material.
Select an impact reference for the replacement.
Set up any required unit conversions, for example if the original material is measured in m² but the impact reference uses kg.
For a utility intervention:
Select the facility.
Choose the utility type (electricity, heat, refrigerant, or water) and the current source.
Select the replacement source from the available options.
For a transport intervention:
Choose inbound or outbound transport.
Select the route by departure and arrival.
Choose the current transport mode on that route.
Select the replacement transport mode.
Once all required details are complete, Root calculates the intervention automatically. You'll see the impact before and after the proposed change, broken down by affected product.
Step 2: Create a scenario
Go to Scenario Analysis → Overview and click New Scenario.
Give your scenario a name and an optional description.
Select the year. Interventions must belong to the same year as the scenario.
Choose which interventions to include.
Root calculates the scenario automatically when you add interventions. The scenario detail page shows:
Company impact before: your baseline footprint for the selected year.
Company impact after: the projected footprint with all interventions applied.
Delta: the total projected reduction (or increase), so you can evaluate the combined effect.
Tip: You can create interventions first and add them to scenarios later, or create a scenario and add interventions as you go. Interventions are reusable, the same intervention can be included in multiple scenarios.
Things to watch out for
Year matching: All interventions in a scenario must belong to the same year as the scenario itself.
Overlapping interventions: If a scenario contains two interventions that act on the same item: for example, two material interventions replacing the same original material, or two utility interventions changing the same source at the same facility, Root will keep the first and skip the duplicate. The skipped intervention is named in a warning in the calculation log.
Incomplete interventions: An intervention shows as "incomplete" if it is missing required details, such as an impact reference or a unit conversion. Complete the missing fields to enable calculation.
Broken interventions: If an underlying record is deleted, for example if a material or facility is removed from your data, the intervention becomes broken and cannot be recalculated. Delete it and create a new one.
How impact is calculated
The Scenario Builder uses your real company data as the starting point, the same data that powers your impact dashboards.
Here is what happens when Root calculates a scenario:
Baseline snapshot: Root captures your company's carbon footprint for the scenario year.
Per-intervention calculation: For each intervention, Root swaps the original item (material, utility source, or transport mode) with the replacement and recalculates the impact for every affected product.
Delta calculation: Root computes the difference between the original and replacement impact per product, then scales it by purchased quantities from your purchase orders.
Scenario aggregation: Root combines all intervention deltas, accounting for overlaps, to produce the total scenario impact.
The calculation draws on:
Purchase order quantities (how much of each product you buy).
Material impact references for each product.
Utility emission factors, country- and region-specific, based on facility location.
Transport emission factors, mode-specific, based on route distance.
Output: Results are expressed in tonnes of CO₂e, using the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 2021 methodology and the GWP100 (Global Warming Potential over 100 years) indicator, consistent with how impact is calculated across the rest of the platform.
Note: Scenarios are always simulations. Root uses your uploaded data to run calculations but never changes it. Scenario results are separate from your actual impact data and will not appear in your emissions reports.
Your scenarios overview
All your scenarios are listed on the Scenario Analysis → Overview page. Each scenario shows its name, year, and calculated delta, so you can see the projected impact of each at a glance and decide which strategies to prioritise.
Saving your scenarios
Root saves scenarios and interventions automatically as you create and edit them. You can return to any scenario at any time from the Scenario Analysis overview.
Frequently asked questions
Will scenarios affect my uploaded data or emissions reports?
No. Scenarios are simulations. Root uses your uploaded data to calculate projected impact, but never changes it. Scenario results are kept entirely separate from your actuals and will not appear in your emissions reports.
Can I apply multiple interventions to one scenario?
Yes. A scenario can include as many interventions as you like, as long as they all belong to the same year. If two interventions target the same item, for example two different replacements for the same material, Root flags the overlap and only applies the first one.
How is this different from my impact dashboards?
Your impact dashboards show your actual footprint based on real data. The Scenario Builder shows a projected footprint based on hypothetical changes. Scenarios do not affect your dashboard data. They are a modelling tool to help you evaluate and prioritise reduction strategies.
What does "incomplete" status mean on an intervention?
An intervention is incomplete when it is missing required details: typically an impact reference for the replacement, a unit conversion, or because the original item itself has an incomplete status. Complete the highlighted fields to move the intervention to a ready state.
What does "broken" status mean?
An intervention becomes broken when a record it depends on is deleted from your data. For example, if the original material, facility, or transport mode is removed. A broken intervention cannot be recalculated. Delete it and create a new one.
Can I reuse an intervention across multiple scenarios?
Yes. Interventions are independent objects. You can include the same intervention in as many scenarios as you like.
Why does my intervention show a recalculation warning?
Something has changed in your underlying data since the scenario was last calculated. For example, a material's impact reference was updated, or unit conversion has changed. Click Recalculate to refresh the results.
What happens if I have no purchase orders for a product in the scenario year?
If the purchased quantity is zero, Root cannot scale the per-product impact to a company-level figure for that product. You'll see a warning in the calculation log. Make sure your purchase order data is complete for the scenario year before running the calculation.