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SOURCING LIFE CYCLE INVENTORY DATA 137

to properly manage the development of life cycle information with a need to
maintain quality. Increased potential for data "mobility" would allow data
from various sources to more easily find its way into LCA databases, and then
into a wide range of new applications. Such enhancements can potentially
bring significant progress toward sustainable consumption and production.
The infusion of new technologies into existing database applications is
occurring, and at an increasingly rapid rate, giving users new ways to access
the information in LCA databases. These new opportunities are not a radical
departure from the status quo, that is, they will not change how data are gen-
erated or stored. They simply offer faster and easier ways to locate and obtain
data. These trends will alter the scope of what can be done with LCI data in
very basic ways. The following examples reflect this paradigm shift.

5.10.1 Creating a Federal Data Commons in the US

Governments maintain vast numbers of databases, some of which contain
portions of the data needed to create a unit process dataset. There are huge
amounts of relevant raw data, and even developed LCI datasets, available that
are currently not easily accessible for LCA studies. Such data are distributed
across many external databases, often managed by different agencies.
LCA database managers, and LCA practitioners for particular studies, could
mine this useful data by working with actors who routinely collect data about
the inputs and outputs of unit processes and related life cycle information. It
is worthwhile to note these databases do not contain LCIs or even LCI data.
However, they can serve as sources of generally useful information (raw data)
for later use in constructing an LCI dataset.
The National Agricultural Library in the US Department of Agriculture (USD A)
is addressing this challenge by creating an LCA Data Commons, an open access,
prototype life cycle assessment database. The Data Commons is a standards-
based network built on a modular framework (see Figure 5.3). It contains inven-
tory data for energy and other crops using North American production practice
information. As a result of this project, USDA data will be put into standards-
based LCA formats making the data more accessible to the LCA community.
The initial inventory data are being provided primarily by USDA and its
cooperators. The goals of the system are three-fold:

Goal 1: Create a prototype North American LCA database with associated
tools for: input and editing data; providing administrative and quality
control, quality assurance functions; calculating inventory datasets, includ-
ing uncertainty calculations; and query tool for user interaction. Where
possible, open-source software tools will be adapted, (see the next section
for a discussion on open-source approaches).
Goal 2: Create life cycle inventory data for North American biofuel feed-
stock such as switchgrass. At a minimum, inventory data will include
greenhouse gas emissions. Where possible, the project will consider water
impact analysis.