Why this matters
France's environmental labelling scheme for textiles (Affichage Environnemental) scores each product's environmental cost with the official Ecobalyse method. To get a product scored, the brand declares it on the government portal, using a file with a fixed set of columns and closed lists of allowed values.
Root already holds much of what that file needs: each product's mass, its category, its materials and their shares, and where those materials come from. The Ecobalyse export takes that starting point and turns it into a declaration file you can complete and upload.
This file is a staging file. Root fills in what the platform already knows, helps you translate your own wording into the portal's official values, and leaves the rest for you to fill in. You then upload one tab of it to the portal. Root doesn't declare anything on your behalf — the brand owns the declaration and the score that comes out of it.
Where the data comes from
One tab is filled in by Root and is not yours to edit. Everything else in the file is built from it plus your answers.
Raw data (Root) — one row per product: internal reference, mass, category and, for each material, its name, its share of the product's mass and its origin. The tab only shows as many material columns as your products need: if your most complex product has three materials, you'll see three.
A few things to know about this data:
Category and material names are your own wording, as entered in Root. The file translates them into Ecobalyse values in the Mapping tabs (step 2).
Material origin is the country of your material supplier's address. This is an approximation of where the fibre was actually produced. If you know the real country, correct it in the mapping.
Percentages are shares of the product's mass and add up to 100% per product.
Every tab is colour-coded so you always know what to do with a cell:
Colour | What it means |
Sage green | Root raw data, straight from the export. Leave it — the next export overwrites anything you type here. |
Light grey | Calculated automatically from your mappings. Don't type over it — fix the mapping instead. |
Light blue | Yours to fill in. Root doesn't hold this data today. Where there's a drop-down, pick from the list rather than typing. |
Medium blue | A low-confidence suggested match. Check these first. |
Dark blue (column header) | A mandatory field. The portal rejects the product if it's empty. |
The Example tab walks three fictitious products through every step, and Ecobalyse values holds every official list the drop-downs read from.
How to work through it
1. Check your raw data
Open Raw data (Root) and scan it. Each product needs a mass of at least 0.01 kg (the portal rejects anything lighter), a unique internal reference, and material shares that add up to 100%. A product can carry up to 16 materials.
If something is wrong here, fix it in Root and export again rather than editing the tab. The next export would overwrite your edit anyway.
Important: make sure that all products have categories, materials and countries properly allocated for this export file algorithm to work.
2. Confirm the mappings
The portal only accepts its own wording. "Pullover" has to become "Sweater", "Merino Wool" has to become "Default wool", and a near-miss spelling is rejected rather than auto-corrected. The three mapping tabs handle this:
Mapping - Categories — your product categories
Mapping - Materials — your material names
Mapping - Countries — your material origins
Each tab lists every distinct value from your data once, with the official value Root suggests, a confidence score from 0 to 1, and the reasoning behind the suggestion. Anything below 0.7 is highlighted in blue for review. Work through categories first, then materials, then countries.
If a suggestion looks right, leave it. If not, pick the correct value from the drop-down. You only correct a value once: every product that uses it updates automatically.
Judge the meaning, not the number. A low score means "look at this", not "this is wrong": "Wool Pullover" can score low and still map correctly to Sweater. And a high score isn't a guarantee: "Recycled Cotton (post-consumer)" can score well above 0.7 and still land on "Recycled cotton (production waste)", which is a different Ecobalyse entry. Carefully read every row.
Countries work differently. The portal accepts 19 values only: a handful of countries plus world regions. A country that isn't on the list is declared as its region, so Australia becomes Oceania and Portugal becomes Western Europe. Mapping - Countries covers material origins only. The manufacturing-step origins are picked straight from a drop-down on Export Ecobalyse (step 3).
Watch materials that make up 20% or more of a product. The Ecobalyse list holds a limited set of materials, so some of yours will map to the closest available one rather than an exact match. That's fine for small shares, but for a material at or above 20% of the product's mass, an unsuitable substitute can make the product impossible to score. Check those lines carefully.
3. Fill in what Root doesn't hold
Open Export Ecobalyse. It has the portal's columns in the portal's order. Internal reference, mass and material shares come straight from Raw data; category, materials and origins come through your mappings. The light blue columns are yours to fill.
Required — every dark blue header needs a value:
GTINs/EANs — the product's barcodes, 8 or 13 digits each. Separate several with ";".
Making-up origin — where the garment is assembled.
Weaving/knitting origin and Finishing/printing origin — required unless the product is remanufactured.
Category, mass, materials and its percentage are mandatory too, but they already come from Root’s raw data and your mappings.
Optional — fill in what you hold:
Brand ID — shown on your organisation page on the portal. Left blank, the account's default brand is used.
Remanufactured — Yes or No.
Number of references — the largest number of references you sell in a product's market segment. The segments are womenswear, menswear, childrenswear, babywear and underwear.
Price incl. VAT — 1 euro minimum.
Company size — Small company, Large company with repair service, or Large company without repair service. These last three feed the durability part of the score.
Spinning origin
Printing type (Fix-washed or Pigmentary) and Printing percentage (1%, 5%, 20%, 50% or 80%) — leave both blank if the product isn't printed.
Fading — Yes or No.
Air transport share — between making-up origin and distribution.
Accessory quantities — metal buttons, plastic buttons, long zippers and short zippers. These are not to be reported as a massa fraction of a product. the product’s materials are textiles only. For any accessory like the aforementioned, report them in quantities per piece.
Empty doesn't mean neutral. Left blank, an optional field doesn't block the submission: Ecobalyse applies its own default and still returns a score. But some defaults work against you:
Number of references — a blank is read as 100 000 references, which pushes the durability part of the score to its worst value. Enter the largest number of references you offer in the product's market segment (womenswear, menswear, childrenswear, babywear or underwear), not your whole catalogue.
Accessories — a blank brings in default buttons and zippers. If a product has none, enter 0 in all four columns.
Spinning origin — a blank is modelled as India.
Air transport share — a blank means 0% when making-up is in Europe or Turkey, and 33% or 100% elsewhere.
Leave the Score column empty. The portal calculates the score from your data. If you fill it in and it differs from the portal's own result, the product is flagged as an error.
If a cell shows "TO MAP", one of your raw values has no line in the mapping tab. Add it there, and the cell will resolve.
4. Check the submission tab
Submission (FR headers) mirrors Export Ecobalyse with the French column headers the portal expects, and translates every list value into French through Value mapping (EN-FR). Numbers, percentages and barcodes pass through unchanged. There's nothing to type here, but scan it before you upload: every closed-list cell should read in French. An English label left over means the value isn't on the official list.
5. Save the submission file
Upload only the Submission (FR headers) tab, not the whole workbook.
Save a copy of the workbook under a new name.
In the copy, select the Submission sheet, copy it and paste it back as values only. Then delete the other sheets. Or simply copy and paste (as values) this last tab into a new workbook.
Save that file as XLSX or CSV. The portal accepts files up to 1 MB.
Never delete sheets in the original workbook. The Submission sheet is built from formulas that point at other tabs, so isolating it before converting to values breaks those links. Keep the original as your master and repeat the copy step for every new submission.
Keep the French headers exactly as they are — they're the portal's contract. The values inside can be English or French, as long as they match the official list exactly.
6. Test first, then declare
The portal has a test server alongside the real one. Run your first pass on the test server: nothing declared there is official, and test data is deleted regularly.
Environment | Use it for |
Checking your file and your scores. It carries a red banner at the top — if the banner is missing, you're on the real portal. | |
Your official declaration. |
On the portal, go to Statements, upload the file and click Send my file for validation. Analysis takes a little while. The result appears in My files with a status, the number of products that passed (for example 13/14) and a result file to download.
Declaration validated — every product passed and is now declared.
To be corrected — one or more rows failed. The result file tells you which rows and why.
7. Fix and resubmit
Fix flagged rows where they come from: raw data in Root, wording in the mapping tabs, your own inputs on Export Ecobalyse. Then save the submission tab again and re-upload. Repeat until the status is green.
Resubmit the whole batch. To redeclare a batch, every product in it has to be redeclared — the portal doesn't accept partial resubmissions.
Once declared, your products appear under Products declared, with each product's score, its label (as an SVG to download) and its submission history.
What's covered today
Product mass, category and material composition, from Root
Material origin, from your material supplier's country
Suggested official values for categories, materials and countries, with confidence and reasoning
Drop-downs for every closed-list field on the portal
A French-header submission tab ready to save and upload
What you still provide
Barcodes (GTIN / EAN) and Brand ID
Durability inputs: number of references, price and company size
Manufacturing-step origins, printing, fading and air transport share
Accessory quantities
FAQ
Does Root declare my products for me?
No. The brand owns the declaration and its score. Root prepares the file; you, or someone you've delegated to on the portal, upload it. Delegations are managed under Organization on the portal.
Which tab do I upload?
Only Submission (FR headers), saved as its own file with values instead of formulas. Uploading the full workbook, with its Read me, Raw data and Mapping tabs, won't work.
Can I declare in English?
The values, yes — as long as each one matches an official list entry exactly. The column headers must stay in French, which the submission tab handles for you.
Why is the material origin only approximate?
Root knows the country of your material supplier's address, which isn't always where the fibre was grown or produced. If you know the real origin, correct it in Mapping - Countries.
Why does a cell say "TO MAP"?
A value in your raw data has no line in its mapping tab. Add the value and its official match there, and every affected product updates.
Why do I have to type 0 for accessories?
Because an empty accessory cell isn't read as "none". The portal fills in default zips and buttons for that product category, which adds impact your product doesn't have.
The portal flagged my Score column. What happened?
You entered a score that differs from the portal's own calculation. Clear the column and let the portal calculate it.
My product has more than 16 materials. What now?
The portal takes 16 at most. Check with your Root contact before declaring.
Can I add products to the file myself?
Re-export from Root instead. The export sizes every tab, mapping and drop-down to your data, so products added by hand won't be picked up correctly.