1 / 14

Sustainability Information ~ A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Digital Commons

Sustainability Information ~ A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Digital Commons. February 24, 2011 Simon Liu, Ph.D. Director, National Agricultural Library. Agenda. Product Life Cycle – Soybean. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).

jfaulk
Download Presentation

Sustainability Information ~ A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Digital Commons

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Sustainability Information ~ A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Digital Commons February 24, 2011 Simon Liu, Ph.D. Director, National Agricultural Library

  2. Agenda

  3. Product Life Cycle – Soybean

  4. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) • Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) – The assessment of the environmental, economical, and social impact of a given product (e.g. Soybean) throughout its lifespan. LCA Goal & Scope Definition • Applications • Policy decision making • Corporate management • Product development • Environmental product labels • “Green” procurement programs • Carbon, greenhouse gas & other reporting Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) Interpretation Inventory Assessment Impact Assessment

  5. LCA Is Data Driven

  6. Global LCA Information Landscape LCA Digital Commons

  7. Need A LCA Digital Commons 1. Identification 5. Quality Review LCA Practitioners 4. Calculation LCA Digital Commons LCI 3. Transformation 2. Extraction 6. Analysis & interpretation

  8. Project Approach • Phase I • Organize project team & committees • Develop project plan • Collaborate with partners • Develop system architecture, standards, guidelines & procedures • Phase II • Develop a prototype • Acquire, harvest & adapt existing LCI data • Collect, analyze, and review new LCI data • Phase III • Disseminate data • Expand the database & network • Conduct research

  9. Collaborators & Partners • Data Producer Community • USDA (NIFA, ERS, NASS, FS, ...) • EPA • DOE • Others • International Partners • Ecoinvent (Switzerland ) • CIRAIG (Canada) • European Life Cycle Database • Others LCA Digital Commons • LCA Practitioner Community • Commodities: soybean, cotton, etc. • American Center for Life Cycle Assessment • Keystone Field to Market • The Sustainability Consortium • Specialty Crop Stewardship Index • Others • Software & Tool Community • OpenLCA Framework • International Reference Life Cycle Data System • Earthster • Others

  10. Expected Outcomes – LCI Datasets • Data collection in tiers • Tier 1 data: crop production with unit processes by year-state-crop (2005-Nebraska-corn) • Tier 2 data: agricultural means of production/work processes (e.g., pressure irrigation, surface water, KY, 2003) • Tier 3 data: supporting processes (e.g., diesel production) • Tier 1 and 2 data derived from NASS (yield) and ARMS; Tier 3 data derived from a variety of sources including ARMS

  11. Expected Outcomes – A Digital Commons Data Producers Data Collection Tools Subject Matter Experts Submission/ Editing Tools Local Databases Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) Management Tools Computation & ModelingTools Central Administrators LCA Tools Retrieval Tools LCA Standards – 14xxx Data Consumers

  12. Expected Outcomes – Advance Sustainability • Provide open access • Move sustainability datasets from deep to surface web • Maximize return on sustainability research investments • Reuse sustainability datasets • Preserve sustainability datasets • Avoid duplication efforts • Mature sustainability practices • Speed up sustainability research • One-stop resource • Integrated view • Intelligent tools LCA Digital Commons USDA, EPA, DOE & other sustainability databases

  13. Success Factors • Data Transparency • Data Quality • Comprehensiveness • Reliability • Interoperability with partners & tools

  14. Q&A Simon Liusimon.liu@ars.usda.gov301-504-5248 14

More Related