Hello everyone,
Here is a new event that you may find interesting. It is about the future of greenhouse gas corporate reporting and the importance of using product-specific emissions. This webinar will be super valuable and informative if you are involved in corporate GHG accounting and if you want to reuse your LCA/ EPD data and inform corporate accounting of your clients. I posted the registration link below. Let me know if you have any questions.
Hey, Milena! Thanks for sharing. The data product your company offers (CEDA) is described as being built from MRIO economic data and as being “compatible with Ecoinvent.” I (and perhaps others on this forum) would be interested to hear more about how you hybridize input-output and LCI data. Are your methods published anywhere?
As people on this forum, more typically LCA practitioners in AEC (the world of Ecoinvent), are working to meet climate targets determined by spend-based methodologies (the world of MRIO), it feels worthwhile to open a discussion about 1) how we can crosswalk between IO and LCA and 2) how hybrid IO-LCA methods might be most applicable to AEC.
This issue comes up often in our work and it’s a bit of a bear. For instance, Scope 3 “capital assets” (where embodied carbon goes in scope 3) is most often counted as just A1-A3 emissions–excluding big chunks of the wbLCA. Curious to hear your (and anyone else’s) thoughts on how we can better move between LCA and IO!
Jack, thank you for these questions. With regards to CEDA, yes, the methodology and data have been peer-reviewed and are undergoing regular updates to reflect the changes in production. You can find more info in this slide deck.
Also, the synergies between the process-based LCA and IO LCA is something we think about a lot (in the context of both LCA and GHG accounting) and the webinar will definitely touch upon that. We currently use CEDA (IO-LCA) for the high-level estimates of Scope 3, which can later be drilled into through product-level LCA. In particular, applying the IO-LCA data can be relevant for capital goods (category 2) of Scope 3 and we also sometimes use it to inform process-based LCA. In that case, I do think that the fundamentals of ecoinvent and CEDA are the same—cradle-to-gate emissions not including use phase and EOL emissions, which need to be accounted for separately. So I think that both methods have their own place in the LCA ecosystem and it is important to choose the right method for your given context.
I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions. I definitely hope you will check out the webinar.
This is a fascinating conversation! Thank you for sharing!
Milena, I tried to open the slide deck you shared, but it says access is denied. I wonder if others on the forum were able to open it.
Following up on this conversation, the key difference between Scope 3 reporting and WBLCA is that in Scope 3 reporting, the emissions are reported in the year they are emitted. However, when companies project their emissions for setting decarbonization targets, future emissions should be accounted for.
I assume A4-A5 (transportation to site and construction) can also be included in Category 2 (Capital Goods) in addition to A1-A3. Emissions from retrofit and replacement (B4-B5) can also be included in Category 2 in the year they are emitted. Module C (EOL) can be included in Category 13 (End-of-life treatment of sold products) for developers who sell their buildings and in Category 5 (Waste generated in operations) for property owners and managers, in the fiscal year the building is demolished/deconstructed. I am curious to hear your thoughts on this categorization of WBLCA emissions.
Thank you.
Zahra
@zahra.teshnizi sorry about the wrong document, not sure how this glitch happened. In any case, I am sending the newest version of CEDA Global slide deck as a pdf.
CEDA Global Deck v3 (October 2022).pdf (1.1 MB)
@jackrusk as a follow-up, I am sending you the pdf of our CEDA Global slide deck if you want to learn more about this database.
CEDA Global Deck v3 (October 2022).pdf (1.1 MB)