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A Master Elementary Flow List for Federal LCA Data
Citation:
Edelen, A. AND W. Ingwersen. A Master Elementary Flow List for Federal LCA Data. LCA XVIII, Fort Collins, CO, September 25 - 27, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
To describe the background and approach being taken to develop a list of Elementary Flows for use in LCA data for the Federal LCA Commons. This presentation will focus on the approach to develop the flow list and the tools used to create and host the list and associated structured vocabularies.
Description:
Elementary flows may be defined as materials, energy or space that are used/taken directly from the environment or released directly back into the environment. Elementary flows in all life cycle inventory and life cycle impact assessment sources used in a model must correspond, or match, in order to build a functional LCA model. A critical review (Edelen et. al. 2017) conducted by the Global LCA Data Access (GLAD) nomenclature working group of elementary flows used in LCA software tools, life cycle inventories, and impact assessment methods found significant differences with the scopes, nomenclatures, data descriptors in implementation of elementary flows.The review produced a number of recommendations to improve elementary flow creation and management. We present a new elementary flow list created for use in the Federal LCA Commons that is derived from these recommendations. The new flow list uses a formal nomenclature that builds off ISO 14048 (2002) and is fully described. All definitions for terms used in the flow list are provided through a structured vocabulary available via the US EPA Enterprise Services. The flow list is available in multiple formats including openLCA-compatible formats, Excel, and for direct import in Python. The assembly source code is public. The flow list will be a ‘living’ list that is actively maintained. Crosswalks to other flows lists and sources will be provided in standard formats to support data conversion.