What is an impact reference?
An impact reference is how Root converts your product and operational data — such as the materials used in a product — into impact data. Each reference carries the environmental impact values for a given material, process, or energy source, drawn from an LCA database (such as ecoinvent, Agri-footprint, or Agribalyse), curated by the Root team, declared from a source document, or built by you as a custom material.
How do you match your product data to impact references?
Root suggests impact references to your product data in four simple steps:
First, in the products chapter, you will upload the bill of materials for each product to your portfolio.
Root then extracts the materials in your product portfolio and, using artificial intelligence and algorithms, recommends a match with an impact reference.
You then confirm that the material's impact reference is correct. Need help with impact matching? No problem, click on the 'Request help' button to schedule a call with one of our LCA experts.
Once the material impact reference is confirmed, we then apply these impact values to all products that use the corresponding materials.
Where can I see the impact reference?
Go to the Matching tab. The Matching overview groups everything that needs an impact reference into categories — Materials, Packaging materials, Addresses, Consumables, Goods & services, Residual waste, Travel modes, and Transport modes — and shows how many items in each are complete or still incomplete.
Open any category to see its items and the impact reference matched to each one. From here you can review a suggested match, confirm it, or change it to a different reference.
Different types of impact references
Root draws impact references from several sources. You can browse them all under Matching → References, filtered by type in the sidebar.
ecoinvent
ecoinvent is a widely used LCA database for environmental impact data. It includes references for a broad range of materials, processes, and energy sources, and is the default source for most matches.
Agri-footprint
Agri-footprint is an LCA database focused on the agri-food sector — agricultural products, crops, feed, and food processing. It's useful for bio-based and natural materials and ingredients that aren't well represented in ecoinvent.
Agribalyse
Agribalyse is a French LCA database (published by ADEME) covering agricultural and food products. Like Agri-footprint, it helps model bio-based and food-derived materials.
Root
Root references are impact references generated and maintained by the Root team. These cover materials, composites, and processes that the team has modelled in-house — for example where no single database entry represents the material well.
Declared
A declared reference is used when the impact results already exist, calculated externally, and you want to enter them directly rather than have Root recalculate them. An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is one example of a source you can use here: a standardised, third-party-verified document summarising a product's environmental impact across its life cycle. You enter the declared impact values from your source document, and Root uses them as the impact reference.
Custom material
If none of the databases contain a match that truly represents your material — for example a specific blend, sourced from specific countries and processed by a known supplier — you can build your own reference with the custom material builder. You define the blend, the processing steps, and the transport routes, and Root calculates the impact of the full chain into a reusable reference. See the custom material references article for the full workflow.
FAQ
How does Root match the materials to impact data?
Root's matching algorithm automatically suggests possible impact reference matches based on your uploaded material, so you can review and confirm them rather than searching manually.
Why is my material status incomplete?
Your material status may be incomplete because it has yet to be matched to an impact reference. If the status remains incomplete after you've matched it, it could be due to a missing unit conversion. For example, if you've entered a material in square meters (m²) in the BOM, we may need its conversion to grams.