Page 157 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

140 LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT HANDBOOK

themselves could undertake either or both of the review and aggregation
tasks. At the same time, newly available generic and reviewed data can be
made available as a free-standing generic dataset for a unit process (i.e., not yet
integrated into a existing database).
Ways to increase the benefits of bottom-up data collection include:

• Helping companies quickly understand the life cycle impacts of
their products, understand relative contributions of each input to
impacts, visually identify hot spots in the supply chain, etc.
• Enabling the exchange of cradle-to-gate LCA results across com-
panies (and software platforms) within supply chains, including
• Sharing of cradle-to-gate results with actual and potential cus-
tomers, while keeping unit process data confidential; and
• Allowing a user the ability to manage access to the data, to update
the data, and even to "de-publish" data.
• Making use of user input to present the user with opportuni-
ties for sustainable innovation. For example, the software could
automatically query regionally relevant databases that con-
tain data on hundreds of different sustainable manufacturing
resources, including technical assistance, and financing for
investments.
• Providing the ability to report progress over time, and to assess
the impacts of progress in the supply chain of a company's own
product's cradle-to-gate impacts. (UNEP/SETAC 2011)

Advances in software and in data-sharing services are key to enabling the
benefits of unit process data collection and on-site use to exceed the costs
of doing so. Free software for on-site use of such data, and free services for
sharing results within supply chains, may make the benefit-cost ratio greater
than 1. Once this is true, the activity can become widespread, especially given
the network dynamic of data demand within supply chains.

5.11 Conclusion

Increasing public availability of reliable LCI databases is a large part of the
solution to the challenge for conducting LCA studies (other significant hurdles
include increased awareness of the need to apply life cycle approaches in envi-
ronmental management and the development of robust life cycle impact assess-
ment models for missing impact categories, such as land use). The demand
for life cycle inventory data presently exceeds the supply, and this situation
is expected to continue for the next few years. Harnessing existing LCA data
as well as drawing upon data resources from outside the LCI data world, and
converting them into usable LCI forms, is becoming increasingly important. It
is important to see this through in a way that creates a credible and transparent
system that is fair to all players.