LCA Database Projects

UWME DFE Lab

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Database Projects

• United States Database Project

  • The US Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory and its partners created the U.S. Life-Cycle Inventory (LCI) Database to help life-cycle assessment (LCA) experts answer their questions about environmental impact. This database provides a cradle-to-grave accounting of the energy and material flows into and out of the environment that are associated with producing a material, component, or assembly. It's an online storeroom of data collected on commonly used materials, products, and processes. 

  • Database discussion for ASME at http://www.wise-intern.org/journal01/christinevehar2001.pdf

  • Access at http://www.nrel.gov/lci/

  • Cost = free

• Canadian Raw Materials Database

  • The Canadian Raw Materials Database (CRMD) is a voluntary project involving a cross-section of Canadian materials industries to develop a database profiling the environmental inputs and outputs associated with the production of Canadian commodity materials. The database uses the techniques of life-cycle inventory (LCI), consistent with the method of life-cycle assessment (LCA).  Industry associations are participating on a voluntary basis with Environment Canada as chair. Materials industries participating are: aluminum, glass, plastics, steel and wood.

  • The database methodology was developed, completed and published by the Canadian Standards Association as CSA PLUS 1116. Data collection by each of the five active industry groups using the methodology was completed in early 1998 and subsequently submitted for critical review. A Critical Review Report was submitted to Environment Canada in November 2000.

  • Access at http://crmd.uwaterloo.ca/

  • Cost = free

• The European Union’s European Reference Life Cycle Data System ELCD

  • The database comprises - next to other sources - LCI data sets of the European Confederation of Iron and Steel Industries (EUROFER), The Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe (PlasticsEurope, former APME), The European Federation of Corrugated Board Manufacturers (FEFCO), Groupement Ondulé (GO), and the European Container Board Organisation (ECO). The data sets to be provided by the European Aluminium Association (EAA) and the European Copper Institute (ECI) will be added to the ELCD database only by August 2006 due to the need for further quality assurance from side of the respective association. All these data sets are officially provided and approved by the named association for publication in the Commission's ELCD core database. We wish to thank these associations for this important voluntary support to LCA practitioners in Europe and beyond, towards a system of high quality and harmonised LCI data.
  • Access at http://lca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/lcainfohub/datasetCategories.vm

  • Cost = free

• Swiss National LCI Database EcoInvent

  • The Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories was founded in 2000 and currently includes institutes and departments of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Zürich (ETHZ) and Lausanne (EPFL), of the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Villigen, of the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research (Empa), and of the Swiss Federal Research Station for Agroecology and Agriculture (Agroscope FAL Reckenholz). The Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories funded the development and programming of the ecoinvent database and its current operation. Its members were in charge with LCI data compilation and updating within the project ecoinvent 2000.
  • The ecoinvent database system is a dedicated software system that allows central compilation, management, calculation and access to life cycle inventory data via the Internet. The ecoinvent data contain harmonised generic LCA data covering the following sectors: energy, transport, waste treatment, buildings, chemicals, detergents, graphical papers and agriculture. The geographic scope comprises the supply situation in Switzerland and in Western Europe.
  • Access at http://www.ecoinvent.ch/

  • Cost = single-user licence- 1'200EUR, multi-user licence (second and each extra user)- 600EUR

• LCA-National Project in Japan
  • The LCA National Project in Japan funded by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) since 1998 has been completed at the end of March 2003, in which (1) LCA methodologies, especially the LCIA method and the practical LCI method for recycling, (2) LCA database for Japan and (3) a network system to show the results of (1)&(2) have been developed.

    In the Inventory Study Committee, the LCI data for approximately 200 products were collected based on the sub-system, i.e. from Gate to Gate, by 22 industrial associations joined to the project officially, and by around 30 industrial associations contributed to the project unofficially. The inventory data such as resource exploitation and oversea transportation were prepared by the survey of the literatures. These LCI data were deployed into the system together with the LCIA characterization and weighting factors, which was developed to be operated easily at the website by users. (from http://lcacenter.org/InLCA-LCM03/Narita-abstract.pdf)

  • Article: Atsushi INABA (2004) Our experience for LCA dissemination

  • Cost = ? (also could not find access point)

• Australian LCA Network
  • Life Cycle Inventory Data Research Program is a research program with the principal aim of developing detailed data inventory resources for Australia. Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) is the second stage of life cycle assessment, but it is often the most resource intensive stage, so the better general data which are available, the easier the LCI development becomes. The Centre for Design's LCA resources are published in spreadsheets, and are also available in SimaPro LCA software.
  • Access at http://simapro.rmit.edu.au/lca/datadownloads.html and  http://auslcanet.rmit.edu.au/datapage.html

  • Cost = free

• LCA Food Database- Denmark
  • The present database is a result of the project "Lifecycle Assessment of Basic Food" (2000 to 2003) by the Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Danish Institute for Fisheries Research, Højmarkslaboratoriet, Danish Research Institute of Food Economics, Danish Technological Institute, and 2.-0 LCA Consultants.  The site is hosted by Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences. Data are also available in the LCA tool SimaPro. Click here to see how to access data in SimaPro. Text in process data sheets is arranged with bookmarks following the nomenclature of ISO/DTS 14048 and data can be exported automatically to databases applying the ISO format.
  • Access: http://www.lcafood.dk/lcamodel.htm

  • Cost= free, provided that proper reference to the source is given.

• Swedish National LCA database SPINE@CPM
  • The Swedish National LCA database was formed through a joint research forum between 13 industrial corporations and Chalmers from an initiative beginning in 1996.  The goal to make LCA reports informative and credible, prompt, and at reasonable cost was realized in the first release in 1998.
  • The public version of the SPINE@CPM LCI database contains more than 500 well-documented LCI data sets in the SPINE format.  Search categories are (1) material outputs and inputs for product outputs, any material and energy output, and material inputs and (2) unit processes and product systems for process names, transport, system scopes, and sectors.
  • See discussion here  
  • Access at http://publicdb.imi.chalmers.se/CommDB/

  • Cost = the data in the database has been classified into three price categories depending on the degree of documentation and level of aggregation at a range of 125,00 to 1000,00 SEK.  An administrative fee of SEK 200,00 will be charged regardless of the number of data sets that are ordered.

• Korea National LCI Database
  • Korea National Cleaner Production Center (KNCPC) is constructing an LCI database for Korean industries with the support of Ministry of Commerce Industry and Energy. The database is based on the request from industries through series of surveys and it is accessible through KNCPC website.
  • Access at http://www.kncpc.re.kr/eng/topics/Lci.asp
  • Cost = ? (also could not find access point)

Data Portals (for searching among databases and data)

• European Commission LCA Resources Directory
  The first version is online and already comprises about 20 databases, 35 tools and 80 service providers. The Directory is updated any 3 to 6 months.

• The IMI portal - Integrated tools for environmental sustainability
  This web portal is for ISO/TS 14048 compatible applications. It includes the ISO/TS 14048 version of SPINE@CPM with more than 500 LCI data sets in ISO/TS 14048 format.

Additions or corrections?-- contact Associate Professor Joyce Smith Cooper at cooper@me.washington.edu