A little more than four years after the release of ecoinvent version 3.0 the ecoinvent team is proud to announce the imminent release of ecoinvent 3.4.
The latest update of ecoinvent version 3 will include updates in the energy and recycling sector, as well as in the chemical coverage. Natural gas supply and electricity production in India have been updated for this release.
Chemicals
With the introduction of version 3.4 the coverage of the chemical sector will be significantly improved. The v3.4 users will have access to several hundreds of new and updated datasets. On the product level more than 120 chemicals were updated and 50 new ones added to the database. As a result, the comprehensive coverage of the new version allows for highly reliable and relevant LCA studies involving chemicals.
Electricity market data
ecoinvent v3.4 will include substantial updates and extensions of electricity market data. In the attributional system models, market compositions will be available for all 142 countries, which are part of the IEA statistics: 100% of (statistically represented) global electricity generation will be covered by country-specific market data. The consequential system model will contain new electricity market compositions for 40 countries, based on projections from the EU and the IEA. These new data will eliminate important shortcomings of the consequential system model and provide a consistent basis for electricity supply in consequential LCA.
Indian electricity
The electricity production in the ecoinvent database is not just updated on a regular basis, but new geographies are added and existing geographies are divided into smaller geographical regions to provide more detail. India is the seventh biggest country in the world (by area) with booming economy and as such is becoming more important when assessing the environmental supply chains of many products. That is why more than 160 new electricity production datasets and markets for the 29 states and 5 electricity grids in India is being introduced in ecoinvent v3.4. The differences in the LCIA scores of the newly introduced regional activities reflect the huge differences in the technologies used to generate electricity in India, depending on the varied terrain and climate conditions of the country.
Natural gas
More than 100 datasets composing the European supply chains of natural gas were updated. With this update the database consistently reflects the most current technology and supply mixes in all European countries and their major suppliers.
Recycling of PE and PET
The release of v3.4 includes novel inventories for the sorting and recycling of post-consumer polyethylene (PE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) packaging materials into secondary granulates. In addition, an alternative recovery option for PE is offered by the conversion of sorted PE into light fuel oil through the process of thermal depolymerisation. These new datasets broaden the range of waste fractions and recycling activities covered by the database.
Follow ecoinvent news and newsletter to find out the release date of ecoinvent version 3.4.
ecoinvent participated as a data provider in the pilot phase of the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) initiative of the European Commission, in the chemical sector.
ecoinvent also supported other initiatives, with background data.
Read more on the Environmental Footprint Pilots.
Since 2014 ecoinvent is the proud partner of the project Sustainable Recycling Industries (SRI). The team has been working hard on projects kicked-off in 2016 and 2017. These projects will deliver new and updated datasets for new geographical scopes, in particular for South Africa, India, Latin America (Brazil, Colombia and Peru). SRI projects also include models for different topics, with global coverage.
Follow the SRI project on the ecoinvent and SRI website
After more than 10 years as member of the ecoinvent board Stefan Hirschberg, former head of the Interdepartmental Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), hands over his place in the ecoinvent Board to Christian Bauer.
We would like to thank Stefan for his support and guidance as member of the ecoinvent Board, and we would like to wish him all the best for the future!
Christian has been part of the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) Technology Assessment group since 2004 and has worked as a member of ecoinvent's Technical Expert group for many years. His place in the Expert Group will now be taken by Karin Treyer.
Karin is as also part of the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) Technology Assessment group, which she joined in 2011. She has also collaborated with the ecoinvent association for years as an expert.
We would like to congratulate both Christian and Karin on their new positions and thank them for their continuous support and trust in the ecoinvent association.
As a lead-in to the upcoming LCM Conference in Luxembourg, we are very happy to announce our next ecoinvent User Meeting on the 3rd of September. The focus of this year's meeting will be on the introduction of our new ecoinvent version 3.4. We invite you then to join us for an open discussion and find out more about the latest version of our database.
See here the invitation and register to participate. The deadline for registration is on the 15th of August.