Welcome to the onboarding manual for our data collection tool, which allows you to collect all necessary data to accurately calculate your company's and product portfolio's environmental and carbon impact.
This article will guide you through how the products' overview chapter works.
What is this chapter about?
This chapter captures general data about your products, such as mass, category and if it contains any primary product packaging.
If you do not have primary data for all products, you can streamline the data upload process by using proxy data for similar types of products.
For more information about Bill of Materials, see our deep dive articles for:
We offer two formats to match product complexity: a simpler upload for straightforward products that are easy to assess, and a more detailed one for products with several components that need thorough analysis.
Why do we need this information?
Collecting this information allows further analysis by product categories, but also enables the usage of proxy products when some Bill of Materials data is missing.
How is this data related to other chapters?
Adding a Category to each product allows you to view the resulting environmental impact grouped by the defined categories.
Adding a product mass enables the use of proxy products. The source Bill of Materials is used for the proxy product and scaled according to the mass that is defined here.
Products page
Explanation of columns
ID: Unique identifier for the product.
Product: Name of the product.
Category: Product bucket or category
Relations: Whether the product is using primary data (source) or proxy data (proxy).
Mass: The mass of a single unit in kg.
Packaging: The number of Packaging IDs that are allocated to the product.
BOM: Shows whether BOM data is uploaded.
Usage (if in scope): Shows whether Usage data is input or not.
End of Life (if in scope): Shows whether EOL data is input or not.
Uploading in 3 simple steps
Download the template.
Fill in the template or export a file from your systems, including the requested columns shown in the template.
Upload your file by clicking the ‘Upload’’ button, then click the 'click to browse’ button or drag your file right into the blue box. Once uploaded, check the ‘Status’ column for incomplete information, then click the ‘Upload’ button.
FAQ
What is a Packaging ID, and how do I use this functionality?
One or more Packaging ID's can be added to one or multiple products in the Product overview page. When a Packaging ID has been added there, a list of unique Packaging ID's will appear in the Packaging ID chapter. A Bill of Materials for each specific Packaging ID can then be added. See the Product Packaging article for more information. More than one Packaging ID can be added, separated by commas.
Why is there BOM mass and Mass?
BOM mass is derived from the total weight of the product's composition. "Added mass," by contrast, applies when a product is linked to another as a proxy and needs a weight adjustment. This adjustment is expressed as a multiplier shown on each product's details page.
What is a proxy and how do I use this functionality?
A proxy is when you use the same Bill of Materials (BOM) for similar products. For example, a T-shirt in different colours or sizes would be a proxy.
To use the proxy functionality, click the ‘Add Proxy’ button. Then, select the products for which you would like to use a proxy BOM, specify the product whose BOM you want to use as the proxy, and provide any necessary information about the weight to ensure accurate LCA calculations. Once you’ve filled in the details, click ‘Add Proxy’ to complete the process.
What is a category and what can I do with it?
You can assign any tag, group or brand or product category to your products. This let's you filter on a category and apply a bulk action on them e.g. create a proxy.
Once you have setup your categories you can view the total impact per category and filter your products on category in the product dashboard.