Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) Data: Your Foundation for Sustainable Decisions

Why Complete an LCI: Life cycle inventory is a core stage of a life cycle assessment.

The Problem: Life cycle inventories require emissions data from various points in your supply chain. Many organizations struggle to get data from the suppliers in their value chain.

The Solution: A background database like ecoinvent can fill data gaps and help experts to produce more realistic impact assessments.

Why ecoinvent: Our environmental database is a globally trusted and annually updated resource with over 26,000 datasets, enabling complete LCA models even with limited primary data.

What Is Life Cycle Inventory (LCI)?

A life cycle inventory database, such as ecoinvent, is a repository of data that can be used to complete the life cycle inventory stage in environmental assessments.

A complete life cycle inventory contains all the data required to analyze the environmental impacts of a product or process. It includes information on materials, energy, water, emissions, and waste, covering both inputs (the resources that go into creating the product or process) and outputs (e.g., the product, any by-products, and emissions and waste).

Compiling all of this information is an intensive process, but it is a necessary step for building an actionable environmental assessment, such as LCA, EPD, or other use cases. An inaccurate or incomplete LCI (such as incorrect material mass or missing waste) could over- or underestimate the final results. To produce more accurate results, organizations should aim to complete unit-based studies instead of spend-based.

Tip: A unit-based study means using of consumed resources, rather than approximations based on the money spent to attain said resources.

The Value of Transparent LCI Data

When data is transparent, it is easier to identify environmental impact sources and make informed decisions.

You can use our database to assess and understand the environmental impact of products and services, enabling action towards building a sustainable future. Our database is traceable, providing comprehensive documentation and annual reports documenting changes.

ecoinvent data is peer-reviewed by internal and external experts to ensure its high-quality status. Our data is also clearly documented to ensure transparency for our users.

We provide the foundation for decisions that will make a sustainable future a reality.

Foreground and Background Data Explained

Foreground and background data are terms that describe the different requirements of a life cycle inventory. Foreground data is specific to your product or process, such as the materials used and their masses, and is supplied by the industries contributing to the supply chain. Background data is used to fill gaps that the industry or researcher is missing. Some institutions instead refer to foreground and background data as primary and secondary data.

Sometimes, foreground data is hard to collect. This could be because the suppliers in a value chain don’t have the resources to provide accurate data for your assessment. In this case, a background data supplier such as ecoinvent can support the life cycle inventory by providing scientifically reviewed data as a proxy, thus enabling researchers to focus their efforts on obtaining foreground data for the activities most relevant for their systems.

Using the latest ecoinvent data starts with obtaining an ecoinvent license. If you are using a software tool to support your environmental assessment, first speak to your software provider to discuss the integration of ecoinvent data.