Page 164 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

148 LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT HANDBOOK

On the other side, there are specialised tools, for example:

• The ecoeditor, provided by the ecoinvent centre, is a tool for edit-
ing ecoSpold data sets and for managing the review process of
these data sets 6
7
• The ILCD editor is a tool for editing data sets in ILCD format
8
• The openLCA data format converter is a tool for converting data
sets from one LCA format into the other

Then, there are tools targeting only a specific user group; these tools are
often created in dedicated research projects, providing for example a specific
technical language for the targeted users, specific databases, and/or specific
modeling choices.
Already [Siegenthaler et cd. 2005, p. 8] list specific LCA tools for the electric/
electronic sector, for the building, waste, and pulp and paper industry. As the
online list at JRC shows, there is an ongoing trend for creating specific tools.
Finally, closely related to the last group, are software add-ons that provide
some LCA calculation or modeling features as add-on to software that is used
mainly for other purposes.
One of the first of these examples is the SolidWorks "Sustainability Xpress"
extension that was also extensively announced in videos, conferences, and
9
other media . Solidworks is a professional CAD software [SolidWorks 2012].
The SolidWorks extension adds values for energy, climate change, "air" (pollu-
tion), and "water" (pollution). These values are calculated in advance. From a
scientific standpoint, "carbon" and "energy" might be seen as closely related,
and some other aspects relevant to the sustainability of a product are omitted
(toxic aspects, land use, social effects). Also, the total impacts of a product can
hardly be determined in the design phase (where a CAD software is used)
since often the specific use of the product is responsible for a large share of
the impact. But still, relevant aspects of LCA are put in front of the product
designer, who then sees directly the impact of product design decisions on the
environmental impact, and can directly consider it (Figure 6.4).
Meanwhile, a more comprehensive extension is released; also, other solu-
tions that target non-LCAusers are available, for example e-DEA [e-DEA2012].
E-DEA calculates results on the fly and allows real, more comprehensive mod-
eling, but is not part of another software; rather, it is linked to SimaPro, using
it as data repository and calculation engine.
Examples for fully-featured LCA software systems are GaBi, SimaPro,
Umberto, and openLCA.

6 http://www.ecoinvent.org/ecoinvent-v3/ecoeditor-v2/
7 lca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ieditor/ilcd_editor.jnlp
8 www.greendeltatc.com/openLCA-Format-Converter.ll7.0.html?&L=l
9
E.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts3EtsfM0QM