Ashley Edelen1, Wesley W Ingwersen2, Cristina Rodríguez3, Rodrigo A F Alvarenga4,5, Artur Ribeiro de Almeida5, Gregor Wernet6. 1. Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), Oak Ridge, 37831 TN, USA. 2. Life Cycle Assessment Center of Excellence, National Risk Management Research Laboratory, United States Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati, OH USA. 3. Greendelta, Müllerstrasse, 135, Berlin, 13349 Germany. 4. EnCiclo Soluções Sustentáveis, Florianopolis, SC Brazil. 5. Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina (UDESC), Lages, SC Brazil. 6. Ecoinvent, Zurich, Switzerland.
Abstract
PURPOSE: Elementary flows are essential components of data used for life cycle assessment. A standard list is not used across all sources, as data providers now manage these flows independently. Elementary flows must be consistent across a life cycle inventory for accurate inventory analysis and must correspond with impact methods for impact assessment. With the goal of achieving a global network of LCA databases, a critical review of elementary flow usage and management in LCA data sources was performed. METHODS: Flows were collected in a standard template from various life cycle inventory, impact method, and software sources. A typology of elementary flows was created to identify flows by types such as chemicals, minerals, land flows, etc. to facilitate differential analysis. Twelve criteria were defined to evaluate flows against principles of clarity, consistency, extensibility, translatability, and uniqueness. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Over 134,000 elementary flows from five LCI databases, three LCIA methods, and four LCA software tools were collected and evaluated from European, North American, and Asian Pacific LCA sources. The vast majority were typed as "Element or Compound" or "Group of Chemicals" with less than 10% coming from the other seven types Many lack important identifying information including context information (environmental compartments), directionality (LCIA methods generally do not provide this information), additional clarifiers such as CAS numbers and synonyms, unique identifiers (like UUIDs), and supporting metadata. Extensibility of flows is poor because patterns in flow naming are generally complex and inconsistent because user defined nomenclature is used. CONCLUSIONS: The current shortcomings in flow clarity, consistency, and extensibility are likely to make it more challenging for users to properly select and use elementary flows when creating LCA data and make translation/conversion between different reference lists challenging and loss of information will likely occur. RECOMMENDATIONS: We recommend the application of a typology to flow lists, use of unique identifiers and inclusion of clarifiers based on external references, setting an exclusive or inclusive nomenclature for flow context information that includes directionality and environmental compartment information, separating flowable names from context and unit information, linking inclusive taxonomies to create limited patterns for flowable names, and using an encoding schema that will prevent technical translation errors.
PURPOSE: Elementary flows are essential components of data used for life cycle assessment. A standard list is not used across all sources, as data providers now manage these flows independently. Elementary flows must be consistent across a life cycle inventory for accurate inventory analysis and must correspond with impact methods for impact assessment. With the goal of achieving a global network of LCA databases, a critical review of elementary flow usage and management in LCA data sources was performed. METHODS: Flows were collected in a standard template from various life cycle inventory, impact method, and software sources. A typology of elementary flows was created to identify flows by types such as chemicals, minerals, land flows, etc. to facilitate differential analysis. Twelve criteria were defined to evaluate flows against principles of clarity, consistency, extensibility, translatability, and uniqueness. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Over 134,000 elementary flows from five LCI databases, three LCIA methods, and four LCA software tools were collected and evaluated from European, North American, and Asian Pacific LCA sources. The vast majority were typed as "Element or Compound" or "Group of Chemicals" with less than 10% coming from the other seven types Many lack important identifying information including context information (environmental compartments), directionality (LCIA methods generally do not provide this information), additional clarifiers such as CAS numbers and synonyms, unique identifiers (like UUIDs), and supporting metadata. Extensibility of flows is poor because patterns in flow naming are generally complex and inconsistent because user defined nomenclature is used. CONCLUSIONS: The current shortcomings in flow clarity, consistency, and extensibility are likely to make it more challenging for users to properly select and use elementary flows when creating LCA data and make translation/conversion between different reference lists challenging and loss of information will likely occur. RECOMMENDATIONS: We recommend the application of a typology to flow lists, use of unique identifiers and inclusion of clarifiers based on external references, setting an exclusive or inclusive nomenclature for flow context information that includes directionality and environmental compartment information, separating flowable names from context and unit information, linking inclusive taxonomies to create limited patterns for flowable names, and using an encoding schema that will prevent technical translation errors.
Authors: Brandon Kuczenski; Antonino Marvuglia; Miguel F Astudillo; Wesley W Ingwersen; M Barclay Satterfield; David P Evers; Christoph Koffler; Tomás Navarrete; Ben Amor; Lise Laurin Journal: Int J Life Cycle Assess Date: 2018 Impact factor: 4.141
Authors: Ben Young; Wesley W Ingwersen; Matthew Bergmann; Jose D Hernandez-Betancur; Tapajyoti Ghosh; Eric Bell; Sarah Cashman Journal: Appl Sci (Basel) Date: 2022-03-28 Impact factor: 2.838