Emission Volumes by Business Unit in the Treemap
The Treemap Visualization in the Emission Analytics section provides an intuitive, hierarchical overview of an organization's greenhouse gas emissions across its structure. It visualizes how emissions are distributed among Business Units (BUs) and sub-units, allowing users to drill down into progressively detailed levels of the organizational hierarchy.
How the Treemap Displays Emission Volumes
In the Dashboard section of the platform, open the Emission Analytics tab. From the “Group by” menu, select “Business Unit” to configure the treemap.
Each tile on the treemap represents a Business Unit, aggregating all its sub-units and underlying activities along with their associated emissions. The size of each tile is proportional to the Business Unit’s total emission volume for the selected measurement year.
When you first navigate to Emission Analytics, the treemap displays the top-level Business Unit.
For instance, in the provided reference (“Terra Farm Group”), the top-level BU shows the total emissions from all 19 activities under that organization, without applying any filters such as Category, Location, or Tag.
Emissions displayed on the treemap are aggregated such that sub-unit totals are consolidated into the parent Business Unit view, reflecting the structure of the organizational chart. This approach is beneficial for users who do not require visibility into individual sub-unit layers.
Using Business Unit Drill-Down
This feature described below will be COMING SOON!
When a user clicks a BU tile, the treemap drills down to its sub-units.
For example, clicking on "Terra Farm Group" reveals "Sales" and "Manufacture" sub-units, each showing their corresponding emission volumes and activity counts, their sub-units' activities, and also an activity directly associated with the parent BU "Terra Farm Group," as it is part of the overall emissions represented by the top-level BU.
Clicking further on "Manufacture" may expose additional child units like "Plant A" and "Plant B," displaying emission volumes at each node, as well as emissions from activities directly associated with the parent BU -"Manufacture."
When you click “Plant B”, a message appears stating “No level to drill down” because there are no sub-units under this business unit.
This cascading drill-down helps users navigate complex organizational structures without losing the hierarchical emission context.
The corresponding Activity Table below the treemap dynamically updates to show all activities associated with the currently selected BU — including those nested in sub-units if aggregation is enabled.
Grouping and Display Logic
Activities are grouped by Business Unit by default. Users can change this grouping through the “Group By” dropdown to view emissions by other dimensions such as Emission Factor, Scope, or Category.
This grouping also determines how emission volumes are calculated and displayed in treemap cubes.
Interaction with Other Filters
When additional filters (e.g., Location, Tag, or Category) are applied, both the treemap and activity table refresh to reflect only emissions and activities meeting those criteria.
If no filters are applied, the treemap displays the full aggregated emission dataset for the selected year and organization scope.
Business Value and Best Practice
The BU-filtered treemap allows stakeholders to identify emission hotspots at a structural level and prioritize targeted reductions.
For sustainability and carbon managers, reviewing aggregated emissions under higher-level BUs simplifies validation and reporting.
Terrascope recommends maintaining clean naming conventions and accurate BU-to-activity mapping to ensure visibility and reliable drill-down behavior.