The LCA Commons—How an Open-Source Repository for US Federal Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Data Products Advances Inter-Agency Coordination

Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a flexible and powerful tool for quantifying the total environmental impact of a product or service from cradle-to-grave. The US federal government has developed deep expertise in environmental LCA for a range of applications including policy, regulation, and emerging technologies. LCA professionals from across the government have been coordinating the distributed LCA expertise through a community of practice known as the Federal LCA Commons. The Federal LCA Commons has developed open data infrastructure and workflows to share knowledge and align LCA methods. This data infrastructure is a key component to creating a harmonized network of LCA capacity from across the federal government.

Life Cycle Data Interoperability Improvements through Implementation of the Federal LCA Commons Elementary Flow List

“…On a national level, U.S. federal agencies have worked collaboratively through the Technical Working Group (TWG) on Federal LCA Data Interoperability initiated in 2014 to harmonize data across U.S. national agencies to produce a common data portal called the Federal LCA Commons [ 14 – 16 ]. As a part of this effort, the Federal LCA Commons decided to create a harmonized nomenclature of EFs called the Federal Elementary Flow List (FEDEFL).…”