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 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 is about make 1kg of steel rebar output flow 1 what steel rebar how much 1 kg destination technosphere output output flow 2 what chromium how much 9.5E-7 kg destination atmosphere output output flow 3 input flow 1 what zinc how much kg source resources input input flow 2 what water how much 3.8 kg source rivers input input flow 3 reference flow

What ISO is about ISO 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 Steel_rebar_Eurofer_268a11fb-baf2-4b9e bea0e76ef6_ xml URI of data set about the process - Steel rebar manufacture: Carbon_dioxide_Emissions_to_air_8864ce da-a72b c9a66_ xml URI of data set about the flow - CO 2 to air: Steel_Rebar_Materials_e0e06e45-28a5-4c5e-af bd4ac5_ xml Mass_93a60a56-a3c8-11da-a b9a66_ 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 –CO 2 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 Aclass Bclass Cclass D product supply 1 supply 2 supply x supply y supply z subclass of LCA data from analysis of supply subclass of LCA data from analysis of supply