european platform for lca data (life cycle assessment) david leal [email protected]
TRANSCRIPT
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
Next steps in standardisation
• URIs for the commodity classes– Who will assign a URI to “Steel rebar”?– ISO, ASTM, EU LCA InfoHub, Corus, ????
Semantic Web and computer interpretability
steel rebar16 mm BS4449 Grade: 460B
16 mm BS4449 Grade: 460B made byFred Bloggs and Co.
http://www.iso.int/iso/std/iso/12345/-6/reference-data/steel_rebar
Next steps in standardisation
• URIs for the commodity classes– Who will assign a URI to “Steel rebar”?– ISO, ASTM, EU LCA InfoHub, Corus, ????
Semantic Web and computer interpretability
steel rebar16 mm BS4449 Grade: 460B
16 mm BS4449 Grade: 460B made byFred Bloggs and Co.
iso12345-6:steel_rebar
Next steps in standardisation
• URIs for the commodity classes– Who will assign a URI to “Steel rebar”?– ISO, ASTM, EU LCA InfoHub, Corus, ????
Semantic Web and computer interpretability
steel rebar16 mm BS4449 Grade: 460B
16 mm BS4449 Grade: 460B made byFred Bloggs and Co.
http://www.bsi-global.com/4449/460B-16mm
Next steps in standardisation
• URIs for the commodity classes– Who will assign a URI to “Steel rebar”?– ISO, ASTM, EU LCA InfoHub, Corus, ????
Semantic Web and computer interpretability
steel rebar16 mm BS4449 Grade: 460B
16 mm BS4449 Grade: 460B made byFred Bloggs and Co.
bs4449:460B-16mm
Next steps in standardisation
• URIs for the commodity classes– Who will assign a URI to “Steel rebar”?– ISO, ASTM, EU LCA InfoHub, Corus, ????
Semantic Web and computer interpretability
steel rebar16 mm BS4449 Grade: 460B
16 mm BS4449 Grade: 460B made byFred Bloggs and Co.
http://www.fred-bloggs.co.uk/bs4449/460B-16mm
Next steps in standardisation
• URIs for the commodity classes– Who will assign a URI to “Steel rebar”?– ISO, ASTM, EU LCA InfoHub, Corus, ????
Semantic Web and computer interpretability
steel rebar16 mm BS4449 Grade: 460B
16 mm BS4449 Grade: 460B made byFred Bloggs and Co.
fred-bloggs:bs4449/460B-16mm
Next steps in standardisation
• URIs for the commodity classes– Who will assign a URI to “Steel rebar”?– ISO, ASTM, EU LCA InfoHub, Corus, ????
Semantic Web and computer interpretability
steel rebar16 mm BS4449 Grade: 460B
16 mm BS4449 Grade: 460B made byFred Bloggs and Co.
fred-bloggs:bs4449/460B-16mm
Computer interpretability
• In the web page for its products, Fred Bloggs and Co. can include the computer interpretable statement:
• Somewhere, perhaps on the BSI website, is the statement:
• On the EU LCA InfoHub are statements about the typical inputs and outputs for the manufacture of 1 kg of steel rebar.
• If Fred Bloggs and Co think they do better, then they can publish the inputs and outputs specific to their production process.
fred-bloggs:bs4449/460B-16mm bs4449:460B-16mm .rdfs:subClassOf
bs4449:460B-16mm iso12345-6:steel_rebar .rdfs:subClassOf
Making this work
• Material products have HTTP URIs– A new business process
• Dereferencing gives:– Web page of information about the product – Web 1.0– RDF formula about the product – Web 3.0
• Standard vocabularies to use in the formulae– Vocabularies for product properties– Vocabularies for LCA
• LCA data published using the same approach– Products have URIs, dereferencing give LCA data
Navigating the supply chain
LCA catalogues (e.g. EU LCA InfoHub) 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
End