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How to Create Products and Complete a Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) Assessment

This step-by-step guide shows you how to set up locations, add products, start assessments, and enter data to calculate accurate Product Carbon Footprints (PCFs)

Updated this week

Calculating a Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) helps you measure the greenhouse gas emissions of the products you manufacture or supply. If you manage multiple products or multi-level bills of materials (BOMs) you can import in bulk and generate PCF assessments in bulk. For smaller use cases, you can still create a single product and complete an assessment manually.

Step 1: Add a Location

Before creating products or generating PCFs, you need to create at least one Location, since a location is required for associating products and generating assessments.

First, add the location where your product’s emissions are associated.

  1. Navigate to Company.​

  2. Click + Add New Location in the top right.​

  3. Enter:
    ​

    • General Information

    • Business Address

    • Description (optional)​

Once saved, this location can be assigned to products and used for PCF generation.

Step 2: Create your products

You can create products in two ways depending on your use case.

Option A: Import products in bulk

This is the preferred workflow if you want to ingest a large catalog, including multi-level bills of materials, and generate PCF assessments for many products at once.

  1. Go to Products.

  2. Click Add new product.

  3. Choose Multi-level products

  4. Download the import template and follow the instructions in the first tab to populate it in the required format (hierarchical-bom or multiproduct-bom)

  5. Drag and drop your completed file into the upload area
    ​

Required data for successful import

Your file must include:

  • Product unit for Level 0 products

  • HS Code for Level 0 products

Note: File can contain up to 300k BOM rows per batch, max 150MB .csv

Handle missing data before importing

If there are data gaps, apply manual pre-processing before upload:

  • Add weight estimations if BOM items are missing amount and/or unit, or if values are not weight-based

  • Addf energy estimations if energy consumption data is missing

  1. Click Import.​

  2. After upload, review the summary and confirm that:

    • Products to import matches your expectations

    • Total BOM items matches your file

  3. Click Confirm.

After import

Once the file is imported:

  • Check the Products grid to confirm your products appear

  • Review the BOM processing status for each product:

    • A BOM item count indicates success

    • Failed indicates an error

  • Note that BOM creation can take time depending on file size and complexity

Assign a location

A Location is required before products can be used for bulk PCF generation.

  1. Open your imported product(s), or select multiple products

  2. Assign a Location using Bulk actions

  3. Click Save

Repeat until all imported products have a location assigned.

Note: If the import created incorrect entries, you can bulk delete the products, correct the file, and re-import.

Option B: Create a single product manually

Use this workflow if you only need to assess one product.

  1. Navigate to Products

  2. Click + Add New Product and select Single Product.

  3. Fill in the product details, including:

    • Name

    • Location from the dropdown, or click + Add location to create one quickl

    • HS code for benchmarking and proxy data

    • Product unit

    • Weight

    • Weight unit

    • BOM- download the template and use the flat-bom sheet

These fields support emissions calculations and benchmarking.

Note: If you are a supplier, this section may already be pre-filled with the products your client requested assessments for.

Step 3: Generate a PCF assessment

Once your products are ready, you can generate a PCF either in bulk or for a single product.

Generate PCFs

  1. In Products, select the checkbox next to one or more products

  2. Click Generate PCF

Each product must have:

  • Product unit

  • HS Code

  • BOM processing complete

  • Location

Note: The Generate PCF button will be disabled if any selected products are missing required fields, or already have an associated assessment

3. Choose a Reporting period (for example, 2025)

4. Keep the methodology set to PACT

5. Click Continue

6. Acknowledge that PCF assessments and automatically calculate them using proxy data and click Generate PCF again.
​
​Note: PCF generation is capped at 500 products per batch
​

Once the process starts, you’ll see a PCF generation in progress message. From there, you can click the Assessments link in the toast notification or navigate manually to Assessments → PCF.


Your new assessments will appear with the status Calculating.

Step 4: Complete the Assessment

In the Assessment page, you will find your assessment marked as “Calculating” so you can review the data imported:

  • Total product output for the selected reporting period.

  • BOM

Upload your BOM as a .csv or .xlsx file. This should include the components, parts, and materials required to manufacture the product.

Required fields:

  • Item name

  • Amount

  • Unit

  • Level ("hierarchical-bom" and "multi-product-bom")

  • Product Unit (for multi-product-bom for hierarchy level 0)

Optional but recommended fields :

  • Supplier name

  • Country of origin

  • Additional description

While optional, these fields improve analytics quality and accuracy.

Note: If HS code is provided, the platform may estimate Amount and Unit where needed.

Combustion and Electricity Consumption

By default PCF will be generated using proxy data. However, you will be able to edit those values adding consumption values when available.

For fuels:

  • Add the type and quantity of fuels used in operations.

  • If no fuels were used, exclude this section using the toggle in the top right.

For electricity:

  • Enter electricity consumption for production.

  • If available, enter the emission factor (for example from your supplier, tariff, or PPA)

  • If no electricity was used, exclude this section using the toggle in the top right.

If you need help gathering this information, refer to the Data Collection article.

Once all required data is entered, run the calculation. The tool will calculate product emissions in a few minutes.

Step 5: Review PCF results

After generation, wait for the assessment status to change from Calculating to Calculated.

To review results:

  1. Go to the Product emissions tab

  2. Review the emissions results for the included product(s)

When reviewing emissions:

  • Check that all expected products appear

  • Confirm completeness, since products without an assessment will not appear in results

  • Compare outputs against expectations or benchmarks

  • If values look unusual, return to the assessment, correct the data, and recalculate

Repeat this process until the values look accurate. You can then export the product emissions in .csv list for external use.

Current limitations and prerequisites

Keep the following in mind:

  • One job at a time: only one import or bulk action can run at once
    If a BOM import or bulk PCF generation is in progress, you cannot start another until it finishes

  • Weights are required for calculation: all BOM items must have usable weight data (amount and unit)

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