Welcome to the onboarding manual for our impact dashboards. This manual guides you through navigating the dashboards so you can interpret insights and make data-driven decisions effectively.
This article explains how the material impact dashboard works. It gives you insight into the part of your total company impact attributed to materials.
How your impact is shown
Using the Impact selector at the top of the dashboard, you can view the material impact as the total carbon footprint, the Environmental Cost Indicator (ECI), or any individual EF 3.1 impact category (such as water use). You can switch between them freely — they're all shown through the same set of views, so there's no difference in how you navigate them:
Carbon footprint (total) — expressed in CO2e, determined using the IPCC 2021 methodology and the GWP100 indicator, and aligned with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
Environmental Cost Indicator (ECI) — a single € value that aggregates all impact categories. If Planet Earth had a bank account, this would be the amount invoiced.
EF 3.1 impact categories — the full set of Environmental Footprint metrics, each in its own unit (for example, water use in m³ world Eq deprived).
The same metrics apply to every score, so each impact category is explained in full just once. For a thorough explanation of every category and how Root converts your data into these scores, see What is characterisation and how does Root convert data into impact scores?
Use the year selector to set the timeframe. The completeness indicator in the top right shows how much of your data has been properly reported/matched. For instance, unmatched materials carry no impact and are flagged in the BOM and materials matching section.
Curious to learn more? Read our blogs on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and the Environmental Cost Indicator.
Navigating the dashboard
Whichever metric you select, the dashboard shows the same views.
Material footprint
The total footprint attributed to materials for the selected timeframe, shown in the unit of the metric you're viewing. The % of company total below it shows how much of your whole company impact comes from materials.
Top contributing materials
This table ranks the materials contributing most to your material footprint, with the amount used and each material's share of the total. Use the Unique / Grouped toggle to switch between listing materials individually and combining identical materials into a single line.
Material impact per material
This table provides the footprint of every material in your portfolio, with columns for Material, Supplier, Total amount, Share, and the impact in the selected metric. Materials that haven't been matched yet show no impact and are flagged, so you can see what still needs attention. Use the Unique / Grouped toggle to list materials individually or combined, and the download button at the top right to export the data.
Material footprint by scope
The total carbon footprint has one additional breakdown that the other metrics don't: a split across scopes. This view distributes your material carbon footprint across scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions:
Scope 1 — direct emissions from owned or controlled sources.
Scope 2 — indirect emissions from purchased energy.
Scope 3 — all other indirect emissions in the company's value chain.
For product companies, the majority of emissions (typically over 85%) fall under Scope 3.
FAQ
What impact categories does Root calculate?
Root calculates your impact across the full set of EF 3.1 metrics — covering carbon, water and land use, toxicity, pollution, air and atmosphere, and resource depletion — and aggregates them into the Environmental Cost Indicator (ECI). Each category is explained in detail in What is characterisation and how does Root convert data into impact scores?
What happens after I upload data — is the dashboard immediately usable?
Yes, the dashboard is always up to date. We've removed the "Request Impact" button, so you'll instantly see the most current data based on your uploaded information.