ecoinvent Version 3.10

Version 3.10 of the ecoinvent database brings a wealth of new and updated data across various sectors. This update is part of our ongoing commitment to provide comprehensive and current environmental data.

March 12th, 2024

ecoinvent v3.10 includes new impact assessment methods and classifications. Sectors updated with version 3.10 include Agriculture, Building and Construction, Chemicals, Electricity, Forestry and Wood, Fuels, Metals, Packaging, Pulp and Paper, and Waste.

Classifications

With v3.10, ecoinvent introduces the HS (Harmonised Systems) 2017 classification for products. In addition to the CPC (Central Product Classification), this classification helps categorize exchanges and can support matching products to the exchanges. Due to the design of the classification system, Infrastructure and Service exchanges are not classified in HS 2017.

Sectorial Updates

Agriculture, Fishery and Animal Husbandry

ecoinvent is back with a fresh and promising update in version 3.10. The highlight of this update is the addition of comprehensive data on new crop production in two major countries for agricultural production – Australia and the United States. For Australia, data on crops like barley grain, maize grain, oat grain, and wheat grain are now available from new regions, ensuring a more accurate representation of their agricultural landscape. In the United States, the update brings data on maize grain, sweet corn, potato, soybean, and various field operations from new states, expanding the scope of information. Beyond that, average European data (RER) for Flax production and scutching are added. Version 3.10 introduces supplementing documentation for FLAG/non-FLAG emissions, providing additional support for the agricultural sector, empowering users to better understand and assess environmental impacts related to emissions based on SBTi’s targets. Finally, Version 3.10 takes a step further by enhancing the quality of data for some agricultural products, reviewing fertilizers’ input data for Lentil and Pea production in Canada.

Building and Construction

The 3.10 update brings rich enhancements to the Building and Construction sector of the ecoinvent database, including a wealth of new data and several updates. We have added comprehensive information on clinker and various types of cement production for the Tunisia geographical scope, as well as their corresponding market activities. The Swiss market database has been updated removing obsolete activities not compliant with the current production of building materials and now shows updated figures for clinker and cement production (including Portland, CEM II/A, CEM II/B) with their corresponding market activities. For the Ecuador region, we’ve introduced extensive datasets covering construction materials like adobe bricks, clay bricks, clinker, cement, concrete blocks, and clay roof tiles production, together with their corresponding market activities.

Chemicals and Plastics

The Chemicals sector is updated to improve the data representation for essential chemical precursors and their derivatives, such as short-chain alkenes (ethylene, propylene, butene, and butadiene), monocyclic aromatics (benzene, toluene, and xylenes [p-, o-, mixed]), ethylene oxide, and ethylene glycol. Industry data for European conditions was provided by Plastics Europe. Additional key updates comprise of technological and geographical coverage expansion for ethylene, propylene, hydrogen, and methanol. Specifically, ecoinvent v3.10 introduces data for China, United States, and Europe.

Moreover, ecoinvent v3.10 introduces updated industry data covering the supply and demand of chlorine and sodium hydroxide, provided by Euro Chlor, diisocyanates (methylene diphenyl diisocyanate and toluene diisocyanate) and polyether polyols (short- and long-chain), provided by ISOPA.

This version also introduces data for industrial cooling supply for process streams at temperatures well below ambient, i.e., –15, –25, –45, –55, –100, and –160°C.

Finally, the Chemicals sector in ecoinvent v3.10 takes a step to a comprehensive content update. This content update focuses on nomenclature, documentation, technological relevance, inventory completeness, and harmonisation following the standard ecoinvent approach.

Energy

ecoinvent v3.10 updates the electricity market mixes to reflect the situation in 2020. In the specific cases of Brasil, China, USA, Canada, and Switzerland the electricity mixes are updated to reflect the situation in 2021. India was updated to represent the fiscal year of April 2019/March 2020. All specific cases are based national while the remaining countries are based on global statistics.

Besides additional minor corrections, harmonization efforts were performed in order to update documentation and meta information of electricity markets, transformation and import datasets.

ecoinvent v3.10 further introduces datasets on the production of a small-scale wind power plant.

Forestry and Wood

The Forestry and Wood sector has been enhanced with the addition of three new datasets related to bamboo forestry, bamboo pole production, and flattened bamboo production in Ecuador. The data was provided by Empa (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology).

Fuels

The new version significantly expands the geographical coverage of the Oil and Gas sector. There are oil and gas production datasets from 41 different geographies, compared to the previous 27 in v3.9.1. This update increases the coverage to more than 96% of the global production of crude petroleum oil and more than 98% of natural gas output. By incorporating data from countries such as Australia, Oman, and Turkmenistan, which are key contributors to natural gas supply especially in Asian economies, we have greatly improved the representation of the sector. The new release reflects the supply situation in 2021 (previously 2019).

Metals

This update expands the data coverage of the Metals sector with new and updated data. Specifically, ecoinvent v3.10 introduces data on thermal spraying (Atmospheric Plasma Spray (APS), High Velocity OxyFuel (HVOF), and Cold Spray (CS)). Prices of rare earth oxides are also updated.

Pulp and Paper

The Pulp and Paper sector has been updated with three new datasets related to beverage carton production. Additionally, the corrugated board production datasets in the European region have been updated in accordance with the latest study conducted by the European Federation of Corrugated Board Manufacturers (FEFCO) and Cepi ContainerBoard (CCB).

Waste Management and Recycling

In version 3.10, the waste sector continues to evolve by carrying on with the second phase of the sector overhaul. The updates focus on disaggregating more than 450 solid waste treatment datasets. The users are now able to see the entire supply chain of treatment activities broken down into separate datasets. All the by-products are transparently reported, emissions are properly allocated in the respective activities generating them, while local waste transport distances are added. Moreover, the geographical coverage of the sector is enhanced, by adding solid waste treatment datasets in more other countries.

Relevant Documents and Files 

Report of Changes

This report covers all changes made in the ecoinvent database between version 3.9.1 (2022). It reflects both the database-wide changes, as well as the sector-specific changes. 

Correspondence File 

The correspondence file is a spreadsheet that lists all datasets in versions 3.9.1. and 3.10 and matches corresponding datasets between versions. 

Database Overview File

The Database Overview file describes the contents of the database. The following information is contained in the file:

• Activity overview(s)
  The lists of datasets contained in each of the three system models, as well as the list of unlinked and unallocated datasets.
• ecoinvent Geographies
  The geographies used in the ecoinvent database. Each geography is assigned a classification, and the geographies that are contained in each geography are indicated.
• LCIA Methods
  The list of the LCIA methods for which ecoinvent calculates impact scores. The version of the methods is indicated, and the original source used for defining the characterization factors is provided.

LCIA Implementation Report

The LCIA Implementation Report documents the implementation of LCIA methods for versions 3.10.

Known Issues

This section lists all known data errors in version 3.10 of the ecoinvent database.

Data Issues

The dataset of soybean production in Argentina (AR) reports an issue in the amount of glyphosate (3 orders of magnitude in comparison with other geographies) used in the life cycle inventory. After an internal investigation with the data provider, the right value to use for glyphosate application is 2.34kg/ha which results in 0.0009 kg/kg Soybean with a yield of 2.6 t/ha.

For all datasets of maize grain production for the US geographies (US-IA; US-IL; US-IN; US-MN; US-NE; US-SD; US-WI) the amount reported for “packaging, for fertilisers” inputs have an issue in terms of order of magnitude and value. To solve the latter, the amount of fertilizers declared in the datasets was multiplied by 0,1kg and divided by 50 kg. Finally, it is divided again per the yield of each crop to have the right amount of kg of packing for fertiliser (0,1 kg represents the weight of a plastic bag, that can deliver 50 kg of solid fertilisers). Finally, consider updating the amount of Waste Polyethylene as a sum of packaging of pesticide and fertiliser.

The right values are provided in the table below. The last column provides the new values.

For those activities reported in the table below, there is an inconsistency between the value of the land use change, annual crop, and the specific sentence in their comment “LUC should be zero because the area planted with corn decreased in the last 20 years”. Please, do not consider the sentence. It will be removed.

 

 

LCIA Issues

There is an issue with characterization factors (CFs) for “Methane, non-fossil” and “Carbon monoxide, non-fossil” in the EFv3.x EN15804 method implementations. While the method website only mentions differences for biogenic carbon dioxide, accounting for it with -1/+1 CFs has consequences: IPCC CFs are lower for biogenic emissions (compared to fossil ones) because a) oxidation (decay into carbon dioxide) replaces carbon dioxide that has been removed from the atmosphere and b) “for biogenic methane the soil uptake and removal of partially oxidized products is equivalent to a sink of atmospheric CO2” (IPCC report). Accordingly, if biogenic carbon uptake and release is characterized (as in EF v3.x EN15804 methods), CFs for biogenic methane (and in case of EF v3.0 EN15804 also carbon monoxide) emissions are higher than in the EF v3.x methods, which use IPCC CFs. This is how the current and the correct implementation would look like:

 Thanks to Conrad Spindler from GreenDelta for noticing and explaining.