EU LCA InfoHub

• A useful set of LCA data– somewhat sparse – but an pilot which can extended– material products and energy products– generic data for typical products

• Contents defined by ISO 14048 Environmental management — Life cycle assessment — Data documentation format

• Contents represented according to the ELCD (European Life Cycle Database) XML schema– a concrete implementation of ISO 14048

What ISO 14048 is about

make 1kg ofsteel rebar

output flow 1

what

steel rebar

howmuch

1 kg

destination

technosphereoutput

output flow 2

what

chromium

howmuch 9.5E-7 kg

destination

atmosphere

output

output

output flow 3

input flow 1

what

zinc

howmuch

0.0027 kg

source

resourcesinput

input flow 2

what

water

howmuch

3.8 kg

source

rivers

input

input

input flow 3

reference flow

What ISO 14048 is about

• ISO 14048 is about processes– perhaps the process of making a product

• For a “unit magnitude process” the flows are specified:– to the process from the environment (e.g. use of fresh water)– to the process from resources (e.g. use of minerals)– from the process to disposal (e.g. solid waste)– from the process to the environment (e.g. emissions to water systems or the atmosphere)

• The “unit magnitude” is defined by a reference flow:– output of 1 discrete manufactured item– output of 1 kg of material– output of 1 kWh of electricity

• There is lots of meta-data– Where the information came from– Time period of validity– Geographic region of validity

Mode of publication

• HTML documents– derived from XML representation by XSLT– XML documents also have HTTP URIs, but they are not linked

• The LCA data base as a huge ZIP file– Unzip to get a directory of XML files for each technical domain– XSLT transforms to HTML are also provided

• Support for both:– Computer processing of XML– Display of XML to people as HTML

Life cycle phases

Mode of publication

http://lca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/lcainfohub/datasets/elcd/processes/ Steel_rebar_Eurofer_268a11fb-baf2-4b9e-8867-38bea0e76ef6_01.00.001.xml

URI of data set about the process - Steel rebar manufacture:

http://lca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/lcainfohub/datasets/elcd/flows/ Carbon_dioxide_Emissions_to_air_8864ce84-9967-11da-a72b-0800200c9a66_01.00.001.xml

URI of data set about the flow - CO2 to air:

http://lca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/lcainfohub/datasets/elcd/flows/ Steel_Rebar_Materials_e0e06e45-28a5-4c5e-af18-616253bd4ac5_01.00.001.xml

http://lca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/lcainfohub/datasets/elcd/flowproperties/ Mass_93a60a56-a3c8-11da-a746-0800200b9a66_01.00.001.xml

URI of data set about the flow - Steel rebar to technosphere:

URI of data set about the property - mass:

Mode of publication

• URIs are of data sets not things– This is Web 1.0 practice– For Web 2.0, the objects are identified

• Dereference the object to get information in different formats

• The product classes (or data sets about them) do not have URIs– “Steel rebar” is just text

– CO2 is identified by CAS number

• URIs are unmemorable – HTTP domain + UUID + version

Some comments

A future scenario

• Good environmental practice means that companies provide LCA data for products

• Two choices for a company:

1. provide audited LCA data

2. relate product to one of the classes of product for which LCA is available

– Classes defined on the Web and identified by URIs

• It is much easier for a company to implement choice 1, if its suppliers either provide LCA data or classify their products

A future scenario

classes of supply with LCA data – LCA catalogues linked to industrial catalogues

class A class B class C class D class D

product

supply 1

supply 2

supply x

supply y

supply z

subclass of

LCA data fromanalysis of supply

subclass of

subclass of

LCA data fromanalysis of supply