To model your facilities effectively in Helix, it’s important to know where data is stored and how the software is structured. You can think of Helix as a digital copy of your production site - capturing emissions from raw materials to products, and optionally, through to use and end-of-life. Knowing where to look helps you work faster, stay organized, and avoid confusion. This article covers the following topics:
How is Helix structured?
What are the input pages?
What are the results pages?
Feel like you're missing information? This article connects to the following articles; check them out if you want to learn more:
How is Helix structured?
Helix generally uses a top-down approach to calculate environmental footprints for multiple products at once. To do this, it organizes your data into four main levels:
Use and end-of-life level (if modeling cradle-to-grave)
Find all of these sections in the top main menu under ‘input’ (Figure 1). Each section contains specific pages that store and manage relevant data. They are briefly described in the sections below. You can also watch this video tutorial on the different levels of Helix.
Other features found on the Helix's main menu include the production year, results, the recalculate button, account, and account settings (Figure 1).
Figure 1: The main menu is located at the top of the screen in Helix.
What are the input pages?
Note - This article: This article simply explains the main pages as they appear chronologically in Helix. Read the following articles if you wish to learn how to navigate Helix like a pro or how to input data into Helix.
What’s included on the company-level pages?
These pages store data applicable to your entire production site.
Usages and Emissions: Site-level energy and water use, waste outputs, and all Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions.
Example: Electricity used to power machinery, water drawn from the municipal supply for cleaning processes, or CO₂ from on-site combustion of natural gas.
Purchasing: All purchased raw materials and components.
Example: Cement, sugar, or cotton purchased for use across multiple products.
Transport: Inbound transportation details for your purchased materials. It covers distances and transport modes.
Example: Distance and mode (e.g., truck, ship) for materials arriving at your site.
What’s included on the process-level pages?
These pages represent the factory operations that transform inputs into products.
Processes: A list of all factory processes modeled for your site.
Example: Injection molding, heating, mixing, or packaging.
Footprint x Process: How your site-wide usages and emissions are distributed (divided) across each process.
Example: The amount of natural gas used for drying vs heating.
What’s included on the product-level pages?
These pages contain all data specific to the products you manufacture.
Products: A list of all your final products, including properties like weight, unit, and product type.
Example: Standard concrete block - type: goods & services, unit: piece, weight: 14 kg
Production: Annual production volumes per product.
Example: 50,000 units of standard concrete block in 2024.
Composition: Material breakdown per product - your digital Bill of Materials (BoM).
Example: A concrete block may include 200 kg of cement, 150 kg of sand, and 50 kg of water.
Process x Product: How factory processes are distributed (aka allocated) across your products. More information on how to distribute processes over products can be found in this article.
Example: Several products undergo a drying process (Product A = 80%, Product B = 10 %, Product C = 10%).
What’s included on the use and end-of-life pages?
These pages support cradle-to-grave analysis, beyond your factory gate. These pages are, therefore, only relevant if you wish to create a full lifecycle model (i.e., consider the goal of your LCA).
Use Scenario & End-of-Life Scenario: Assumptions about how your product is used and what happens when the product reaches the end of its life.
Example: Electricity consumption during product use and percentages of landfill, incineration, or recycling.
Product: Use and end-of-life scenarios are allocated to each product.
What’s included on the Your Templates page?
Your Template: Your created custom LCA report templates.
Use: Export an editable report per product in your preferred report format (see the ‘Generate Reports’ page in the next section).
What are the results pages?
Once all your data is input into Helix, use these pages to view your environmental impact results. View environmental impact results on multiple levels: per company, process, product, material, and scope.
What’s included on the Product Overview page?
Impact results per product. You can download detailed reports or view the environmental profile per product.
What’s included on the Statistics pages?
Impact results across different levels. All result views:
Company: Emissions summary for the entire company, categorized into different scopes.
Subsidiaries: Emissions per subsidiary and comparisons between them.
Scope: Emissions breakdown per scope category visualized in a donut chart.
Process: Compare the footprint of different processes
Product: Impact per product and comparisons across your portfolio
Material: Understand which materials drive your impact.
Impact Flow: Visual map of how emissions flow from usage to process to product
What’s included on the Verification Documents page?
Admins only: Upload verifier’s statements that attach to your environmental profiles.
Video tutorial - Helix levels
Watch the following video about the organization levels in Helix:
What’s next?
Understanding how data is structured and stored in Helix enables you to work more efficiently, avoid confusion, and derive greater value from your model. From company-wide emissions to detailed product BOMs, Helix organizes your environmental data in a clear structure, ready for analysis, reporting, and improvement. Once your data is entered, use the results pages to explore your product footprints, spot hotspots, and generate shareable reports.
