How can I define system boundary in openlca?

Question

Hello,

I am using ecoinvent 3.5 database. My problem is that the software automatically considers a Cradle to Grave approach which includes all processes. 

For example, when I choose the following process :

"transport, aircraft, passenger, consequential, Unit, RoW"

I can see that the software includes upstream processes such aircraft production! or airport construction! and links these processes to my product system. 

I only want to calculate the impact of "transportation" itself excluding the above-mentioned processes (or a Gate to Gate approach). 

Answer 1

What you observe is a property of the ecoinvent database which tries to consider "everything". This is only considered in your model though if you let the product system be created by autoconnecting all linked processes (of the ecoinvent database). You can also manually connect and thus build your supply chain. Also, you can set a quantitative threshold for setting a boundary, when building the product system. This does not consider unit conversions though and thus works best in databases that have only 1 unit, as the IO databases for example.

Comments

Thank you for the answer.
Also,
Can I define the system boundary by deleting unwanted processes manually in the graph model when I make the product system?