How to model warehousing in OpenLCA?

Question

I'm having trouble modeling warehousing in OpenLCA (using free databases).

I have my product and want to create a process for warehousing said product. Warehousing inputs include heat (kWh/cubic meters of warehouse), electricity (kWh/cubic meters of warehouse), the product (cubic meters/number of days in warehouse). The output is the product (number of items).

Is my method on the right track? Is there a better way to go about modeling warehousing?

Thank you for your assistance!

Answer 1

Hi, interesting question, maybe you can distinguish building the warehouse (per m³ e.g.), which is then used per item of stored good to a very small extent in a "warehousing" process (say, the warehouse "lives" 40 years, in this time, for one m³, how many products do you store - so that you e.g. need 1/(40*365*20) m³ for each stored good if you store 20 goods/day per m³) and operating the warehouse (needing electricity etc.). But in principle on the right track I would say.

Comments

Hi Andreas, thank you for the answer. I see where you're going with your suggestion, however I don't think that logic works. If  I was to include the building of the warehouse to measure the impact of storing an item in it then I would also need to include the manufacturing of the truck and the plane that my products use for transport.

I'll move ahead with my current method.

Thank you again.

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well, of course my "logic works" I would say, but it is on the other side a modeling decision whether to include infrastructure (like constructing the warehouse) or not. And indeed this decision should then be applied consistently, at least in the foreground system. Good luck!