The ecoinvent Centre in Switzerland and thinkstep AG based in Stuttgart, Germany offer background databases for Life Cycle Assessment. The GaBi databases and the ecoinvent database are the market leaders in this field.
I am grateful for the willingness to participate in the following short interview on LCA databases shown by Dr. Gregor Wernet, Executive Manager, at the ecoinvent Centre.
We receive exclusive insights, among others, into upcoming developments and learn about the vision of how the ecoinvent database may look like in 5 years from now.
Dr. Gregor Wernet, Executive Manager, at the ecoinvent Centre.
What do ecoinvent 3 users particularly appreciate about the database?
Users above all appreciate the wide range of products and processes covered by the database, as well as the database’s international orientation. They also appreciate the transparency of the data and the choice of several system models that allow a good adaptation to specific standards and requirements.
What kind of highlights and innovations are planned or in progress for the next update and when is it expected?
Only four months ago, the release of ecoinvent 3.2 allowed, among other things, the updating of all power data. The next version, ecoinvent 3.3, is scheduled for the summer of 2016 and will include a first part of the world food database, including foods such as coffee, fruits and vegetables.
How do you and your team assess the utility and importance of ecoinvent for creating product environmental footprints or organizational environmental footprints?
ecoinvent is already being successfully used in over 80% of pilot projects in the PEF/OEF. The PEF requires background data transparency on unit process level, something ecoinvent fully supports. This EU requirement confirms ecoinvent’s focus on clear, comprehensible results – only transparent background data allow you to have real confidence in results. The specific requirements of the PEF, such as specific rules for the modeling of waste and recycling, can be mapped in ecoinvent by means of a system model, ensuring that methodological inconsistencies do no result in the failure of user projects.
What other questions do you consider as being especially important?
The question for us at ecoinvent is: “Why is a transparent database important?” or even particularly relevant.
In ecoinvent, users can trace the environmental impacts of their products step by step throughout the product lifecycle, all the way back to the “cradle”. Each number, every emission can be individually identified and tracked. This allows you to gain insights that would never be possible without transparency. The target audience for studies and reports also gains confidence in this way – ecoinvent is transparently traceable even for non-customers. Environmental studies are often challenged, and accusations of “greenwashing” can arise quickly without database traceability – ecoinvent’s transparent database can counteract this from the beginning.
Thank you Gregor!
Also read the article on data as a success factor for LCA.
- Products & Solutions (100)
- Trends & Technology (99)
- News & Updates (68)
- Challenges (67)
- Sustainability (49)
- life cycle assessment (44)
- Energy efficiency (30)
- Compliance (28)
- circular economy (23)
- carbon footprint (22)
- echa (21)
- LCA (19)
- Resource efficiency (19)
- SCIP (19)
- Umberto (18)
- Material flow cost accounting (15)
- material flow analysis (13)
- Renewable energy (11)
- material efficiency (11)
- Process Optimization (10)
- environmental product declaration (9)
- Ecodesign (8)
- Efficiency (8)
- Trends (8)
- Customer driven-sustainability (7)
- Eco label (7)
- Ipoint suite (7)
- Lca databases (7)
- Supply chain (7)
- Survey (7)
- Sustainable development (7)
- blockchain (7)
- Renewable heat (6)
- automotive (6)
- research (6)
- China (5)
- Corporate carbon footprint (5)
- Digitalization (5)
- Materialflusskostenrechnung (5)
- carbon footprinting (5)
- digital product passport (5)
- waste management (5)
- Chemical industry (4)
- Climate protection (4)
- Cobalt reporting (4)
- OECD (4)
- Okobilanzierung (4)
- Sustainable transport (4)
- carbon neutrality (4)
- construction industry (4)
- germany (4)
- Big Data (3)
- Brexit (3)
- Conflict minerals (3)
- Corporate Social Responsibility (3)
- Database (3)
- Due diligence (3)
- Environmental product declarations (3)
- Eutrophication (3)
- IFEU (3)
- ISO 50001 (3)
- Leed (3)
- Medical device (3)
- Photovoltaics (3)
- Ressourceneffizienz (3)
- Social media (3)
- building sector (3)
- carbon neutral (3)
- greenhouse gas inventory (3)
- transport sector (3)
- water footprint (3)
- 20-20-20 Objectives (2)
- 3D printing (2)
- BASF (2)
- Christian-Doppler-Laboratory (2)
- Conflict minerals reporting (2)
- Cycling (2)
- E-car (2)
- Environmental impact (2)
- Environmental management (2)
- Environmental performance (2)
- Fish (2)
- Gate to gate (2)
- Global warming (2)
- Governance (2)
- Green business 2 (2)
- Green investment (2)
- Human rights (2)
- Inatba (2)
- Integrated reporting (2)
- Integrative approach (2)
- Knowledge economy (2)
- MFA (2)
- Okobilanz (2)
- Renewable Resources (2)
- Sdgs (2)
- Software (2)
- Steady state economy (2)
- Sustainable business (2)
- Sustainable lifestyle (2)
- UK REACH (2)
- Umberto for carbon footprint (2)
- Umweltbundesamt (2)
- agriculture (2)
- best practice (2)
- biodiversity (2)
- biomass (2)
- building standards (2)
- carbon intensity (2)
- carbon relocation (2)
- collaborative consumption (2)
- consistency (2)
- corporate material flow modeling (2)
- cost savings (2)
- developing world (2)
- eLCAr (2)
- energiewende (2)
- energy (2)
- esankey (2)
- food industry (2)
- green jobs (2)
- holistic approach (2)
- milk (2)
- modern slavery (2)
- okobilanzdaten (2)
- productivity (2)
- resilience (2)
- sankey diagram (2)
- seafood (2)
- transport (2)
- 2012 (1)
- 3 scopes (1)
- ACHEMA (1)
- AI (1)
- Abfallwirtschaft (1)
- Ankara (1)
- B2B (1)
- BMBF (1)
- BREEAM (1)
- Bachelor program (1)
- Bauwesen (1)
- Brazil (1)
- CFC (1)
- CO2-Fußabdruck (1)
- Central america (1)
- Circular Economy Action Plan (1)
- Comparative life cycle assessment (1)
- Composite indicator (1)
- Construction (1)
- Consumer goods (1)
- Consumption (1)
- Country Attractiveness (1)
- Creative sustainability (1)
- Csr report (1)
- Data (1)
- Data collection (1)
- Davos (1)
- Decarbonization (1)
- Denmark (1)
- Design (1)
- Deutschland (1)
- Developing countries (1)
- Dienstleistungen (1)
- Distributed manufacturing (1)
- Domestic sector (1)
- Earth Sciences (1)
- Earth summit (1)
- Ecolabelling (1)
- Ecological resilience (1)
- Efficiency measures (1)
- Effizienzfabrik (1)
- Ehs (1)
- Emission relocation (1)
- Ems (1)
- Energieeffizienz (1)
- Energy Intensity by Sector (1)
- Engineering excellence (1)
- Environmental Contracting (1)
- Environmental Engineering (1)
- Environmental capital (1)
- Environmentally Weighed Material Consumption (1)
- European Comission (1)
- European Green Cars Initiative (1)
- Evaleau (1)
- Events (1)
- External effects (1)
- Fifa (1)
- Fmd (1)
- Food footprint (1)
- Food production (1)
- Ford (1)
- Forest ecosystems (1)
- Free trade (1)
- Freighter travel (1)
- GHG mitigation (1)
- Ghg reduction goals (1)
- Global compact (1)
- Global justice (1)
- Green business models (1)
- Green consumers (1)
- Green deal (1)
- Green new deal (1)
- Happy life years (1)
- Harze (1)
- Hdpe (1)
- Human development index (1)
- Human trafficking (1)
- ILCD Handbook (1)
- IPCC (1)
- ISO 14015 (1)
- ISO 14031 (1)
- ISO 14064 (1)
- ISO 14067 (1)
- ISO-14000 (1)
- ISO-14008 (1)
- ISO-14025 (1)
- ISO-14046 (1)
- Impact category (1)
- Incentive (1)
- Industry-4-0 (1)
- Information design (1)
- Input output (1)
- Input output economics (1)
- Intellectual property (1)
- Iso 14001 (1)
- Klimawandel (1)
- Kuznets curve (1)
- LIFE AskREACH (1)
- Lieferkettengesetz (1)
- Life cycle analysis (1)
- Life cycle perspective (1)
- Linkedin (1)
- Living planet report (1)
- Long-Term Pay (1)
- Material consumption (1)
- Material flow modeling (1)
- Material flowcosts (1)
- Material footprint (1)
- Mexico (1)
- Monetize external costs (1)
- Montreal Protocol (1)
- Natural Cost Accounting (1)
- Nature conservation (1)
- Nitrate pollution (1)
- Nutrients cycle (1)
- Okobilanzdatenbanken (1)
- Okolabelling (1)
- Okologischer fusabdruck (1)
- Online Resource Efficiency Platform OREP (1)
- Operational efficiency (1)
- Pas (1)
- Pcf (1)
- Philippines (1)
- Pilot program (1)
- Plastic industry (1)
- Pollution haven hypothesis (1)
- Process improvement (1)
- Process system engineering (1)
- Product management (1)
- Product stewardship (1)
- Product sustainability (1)
- Production planning (1)
- Produktlebensdauer (1)
- Prop 65 (1)
- Protection proprietary data (1)
- Pvc (1)
- Qatar (1)
- Quality journalism (1)
- Rapid prototyping (1)
- Refuse derived fuel plant (1)
- Renewable methane (1)
- Renewable process heat (1)
- Retailer (1)
- Rio20 summit (1)
- Rolf Dobelli (1)
- Social ecological resilience (1)
- Solar thermal energy (1)
- Sorgfaltspflichtengesetz (1)
- South africa (1)
- Supermarket chain (1)
- Sustainability performance (1)
- Sustainability strategy (1)
- Sustainable architecture (1)
- Sustainable living (1)
- Sustainable resins (1)
- Sydney (1)
- System analysis (1)
- Telecommunications (1)
- Total material consumption (1)
- Treibhauspotenzial (1)
- Turkey (1)
- UK CA (1)
- University (1)
- VDMA (1)
- Vertical cooperation (1)
- Waste prevention (1)
- Wind power (1)
- World cup (1)
- World vegan day (1)
- Yet (1)
- Zero carbon city (1)
- academia (1)
- acidification (1)
- air quality (1)
- aluminum (1)
- amazon (1)
- antarctic ozone hole (1)
- apocalypse (1)
- apple (1)
- assessment (1)
- atmospheric carbon measurement (1)
- background database (1)
- battery change station (1)
- bike sharing (1)
- bio capacity (1)
- bio-economy (1)
- biocapacity (1)
- biological gas treatment (1)
- blogs (1)
- books (1)
- business opportunity (1)
- car (1)
- carbon emissions (1)
- carbon free city (1)
- carbon leakage (1)
- carbon management (1)
- carbon management 2 (1)
- carbon reduction (1)
- carbon tax (1)
- carbon-neutral travel (1)
- cargo shipping (1)
- carton (1)
- certification (1)
- change (1)
- climate impact (1)
- climate neutral (1)
- co2 fusabdruck (1)
- cogeneration (1)
- combined reporting (1)
- commons (1)
- cooperation along product (1)
- cradle to cradle (1)
- de-growth economy (1)
- digital battery passport (1)
- ecarus (1)
- eco design (1)
- ecoinvent (1)
- ecological tax reform (1)
- ecosystem disturbance (1)
- efficiency investment (1)
- efficient construction (1)
- energy efficiency in production (1)
- energy sources (1)
- environmental accounting (1)
- environmental impact data (1)
- environmental management system (1)
- environmental performance indicator (1)
- environmental technology verification (1)
- environmentally friendly raw materials (1)
- esg (1)
- fashion (1)
- food loss (1)
- food sector (1)
- gate-to-gate approach (1)
- geopolymer cement (1)
- green Christmas (1)
- green buildings (1)
- green paradox (1)
- green production (1)
- greenhouse (1)
- handprinting (1)
- holistic sustainability (1)
- lca-software (1)
- lcia (1)
- lifecycle (1)
- logitech (1)
- management models (1)
- material flow balance (1)
- material losses (1)
- material-flow-accounts (1)
- media (1)
- modeling (1)
- nuclear phase out (1)
- policy instruments (1)
- politics (1)
- post oil age (1)
- product environmental footprint (1)
- production circle (1)
- ressource efficiency analysis (1)
- saving potentials (1)
- scope 3 (1)
- season's greetings (1)
- smart meter (1)
- social cost accounting (1)
- stranded assets (1)
- sustainability control (1)
- sustainability projects (1)
- sustainable products (1)
- tajikistan (1)
- textile industry (1)
- textile refinement (1)
- toyota (1)
- trade (1)
- transport emissions (1)
- uk-rohs (1)
- umweltbilanz (1)
- urban carbon emissions (1)
- velib (1)
- volvo (1)
- waste air treatment (1)
- waste hierarchy (1)
- wastewater (1)
- water stress (1)
- wind gas (1)
- world statistics day (1)
- zero growth (1)
- Ökologischer Fußabdruck (1)