Will ecoinvent also establish "Memoranda of Understanding" with national LCA projects like we see the European Commission has now made with Brazilian, Chinese and Malaysian projects?
We see the "Memoranda of Understanding" of the European Commission as their legitimate way to seek harmonisation of the data collection activities of important trading partners. In contrast, the interest of the ecoinvent Centre is in agreements with national data collection initiatives focussing on technical content and expertise. A Memoranda of Understanding with the EU commission does not exclude that the same organisations can work with the ecoinvent Centre to integrate national data in the ecoinvent database. In cooperation with the national data collection initiatives we appoint geographical editors that work in tandem with our activity editors to ensure consistency of data not only within each set of national data, but also for the same processes across countries. In addition, the ecoinvent Centre focus on providing assistance to the national data collection initiatives in terms of technical infrastructure and validation procedures, education, and other support to data collectors and editors, aiming at building long-term relationships without need for long-term binding agreements.
What is the main difference between ecoinvent and the ILCD Data Network?
The ILCD Data Network has been described as "a network of independently managed and published data", in contrast to ecoinvent being a centralised global database for transparent unit-process data. We have chosen a centralised structure because this is the most efficient way to ensure consistency. In a centralised database, consistent linking between processes is automatically ensured already when editing a new dataset, and improvements in one dataset immediately translate into an improvement in all other connected datasets. As expressed by our motto "Trust in transparency", we build our database upon unit-process data, so that the user can check all data collection procedures and assumptions, and make adjustments to these if needed. Another important advantage of transparency is that only in a transparent unit-process database is it possible to make consistent modelling of co-product allocation across all unit-processes. Our recent user survey encourages our choice by placing "Transparency of data" as the top-most desired characteristic of the database, together with "Consistency" and "Validated data", even in front of important issues such as "Completeness" and "Technological and geographical coverage" (which of course does not mean that we will not continue developments also on the latter issues). It is also important to note that consistency is not only a technical issue for data collection and validation but also a procedural issue, where a centralised control of the validation procedure is much more efficient. Finally, as a stable and economically solid non-profit organisation with a long-term budget, the ecoinvent Centre is able to guarantee the maintenance and upgrading of the database for many years into the future. While there is certainly a role to play for many different kinds of LCI databases, and that a network between these are an important way to enhance comparability and consistency, we believe that the choices we have made will allow us to continue to play a stabilising role, providing a benchmark for data quality and consistency on the International market for LCI data.
Does ecoinvent have any comments on the ILCD handbook?
It may be too early to comment on this because the ILCD Handbook is not yet sent into public consultation. We welcome any attempt to provide more unambiguous guidance for data collection, and look forward to contribute to the ILCD Handbook. Our own quality guidelines serve the same purpose, and like any other guideline they are subject to revision and improvements over time. What is most important for such guidelines is that they are as unambiguous as possible and support all the situations that a data collector is expected to encounter in practice. We hope - and will work to support - that the ILCD Handbook will end up being so unambiguous and practical that the data collected by following its advice will also be useable for the ecoinvent database.
Will ecoinvent also adopt the ILCD format?
The ecoinvent Centre supports the idea of data exchange and was instrumental in developing the open-source ecoSPOLD format that is now the most widely used data exchange format for LCI data. The choice of format should not exclude anyone from supplying data to or receiving data from the ecoinvent database. We work to develop adequate interfaces to the ecoinvent database for both data suppliers and customers that prefer to use the ILCD format. At the same time, we will keep on maintaining the ecoSPOLD format as the main format for our database. A version 2 of the ecoSPOLD format is in preparation, due for release in 2009.
How does ecoinvent relate to the data provided to ILCD by industry associations?
The ecoinvent strategy is to work with industry at the level of unit processes, with industry experts as editors, stressing our independence of any specific companies or industries. Industry associations provide an important contribution to our data supply. However, before integration into the ecoinvent database the data are subject to our normal validation procedures to ensure quality, transparency and consistency of the resulting datasets, both across industries and in relation to the data from national economic accounts and environmental reporting systems.
Does ecoinvent support the ILCD Network?
As for any other national data collection initiative, the ecoinvent Centre has offered the European Commission's LCA Platform to enter into an unconditional cooperation, allowing the LCA Platform to draw upon the long experience of ecoinvent, to use our infrastructure and validation mechanism, and cooperate on its further development. Until now, the European Commission has chosen instead to build up a parallel structure. However, in the interest of the International LCA society, we remain open to assist the ILCD when needed, and shall seek to ensure that unit process data from the ILCD Network also become part of the ecoinvent database when they fulfil the ecoinvent quality criteria, and vice versa.