In the Integrated Product Policy Communication of 2003, the European Commission recognised Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as “the best framework for assessing the potential environmental impacts of products”. Since then, life cycle approaches were further strengthened in EU policies through the Sustainable Production and Consumption / Sustainable Industry Policy Action Plan Communications that encompasses various policies (e.g. Eco-design for Energy-related Products Directive, Footprint initiative, etc.). Within this context there is an urgent “need to improve data availability and quality worldwide by internationally cooperating on LCA data and methods”. To address this situation and to foster standardization, the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Data Network has been developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (DG JRC).
The ILCD Data Network (ILCD DN) aims at providing consistent and quality-assured LCI data through the web, with easy access via searches, filtering, and sorting. The data sets in the network can come from any data developer/owner, e.g. industry, national LCA projects, research groups, and consultants. The data will be published by the developer/owner under its own conditions, e.g. for free, for fee, via registration, etc.
The ILCD DN will comprise LCA data from different databases increasing data sharing but raising a consistency problem. While, within specific databases, quality are ensured due to the development of modelling principle, across databases there can exist significant differences. This includes modelling approaches (e.g. system boundaries definition), allocation approaches and nomenclature of flows denoted in the inventories. Bridging these differences to ensure the efficient exchange of data is one of the ever challenges in the field of LCA. Moreover, some current research activities are aiming to broaden LCA application perspective from the geographical perspective. This will have a great influence on the LCA data aspect and will increase the need for well documented datasets.
The ILCD Entry-level Requirements have been developed in order to set minimum quality requirements for datasets registered to the ILCD DN. This level of requirements has been put in place to quickly increase the access to properly documented LCI data sets. These requirements together with the use of the ILCD data format and related tools will allow the practitioner to work with a common set of elementary flows, LCIA methods, etc. At the same time the data sets are identified according to the quality-level they adhere to. It is important to highlight that all data in the network have to be in line with ISO 14040 and 14044, that is part of the entry-level requirements.
ILCD DN IT feature will allow managing LCI datasets subscription and selection, only ILCD Entry-level compliant datasets will be registered to the Network. This will guarantee to the LCA practitioners to find only high quality and well documented data enabling selection of coherent and appropriate data for their study.
After detailing this justification of the ILCD D N, this paper will describe the ILCD DN features, the role of contributors (e.g. node administrator, registry administrator, visitors) and will illustrate its application for the management of LCA data networks.
The benefits of using such a tool by LCA regional networks will be highlighted.
Finally, this paper will summarise the current development stage of the ILCD DN.
MATHIEUX Fabrice;
RECCHIONI Marco;
2013-02-28
Setac
JRC75072
http://lcacopenhagen.setac.eu/embed/Copenhagen/programme_abstracts_book_31102012_v2.pdf,
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC75072,
