ecoinvent Forum Archive

 Hi,

I am new to the world of LCA and still learning. 

I am trying to find what is the environmental impact (emissions) of transporting 1 kg of soap? How do I do that?

In the ecoinvent database I have found a database called "Market for soap" which has coefficients for different modes of transport given in Ton*km. However, I am not sure what exactl this unit means and how I can use it. 

Also could you please tell me how the coefficients in Market for Soap were calulcated?

Thanks for your help

Regards,

Sahil

Dear Sahil,

Thank you for your question. Transport distances in a market represent the average transport from producer to consumer in a given geographical region. Transport distances refer to the wet mass of the reference product (in the case of soap: 1 Kg) and are given as metric ton*km.

In order to understand how the amount of transport is calculated, I recommend to have a look at this FAQ. In the case of the soap market, default global transport distances have been used. The data for default transport are based on transport statistics, EUROSTAT and USBTS. In the “ Documents & Files” section of our website, you can find this file which describes the model.

I hope this answers your question.

Kind regards,

Nora Minas, Junior Data Analyst, ecoinvent association