Environmental and Social LCA, Export

Question

I'd like to do both environmental and social LCA for the same process within openLCA.

Is it appropriate to build the inventory model first within an evironmental focused database and export it? After export I intend to import that inventory model into a social focused database. Adventage is that I have to build the inventory once and can do the impact assessment separately in databases best suitable for either evironmetal or social impact. Which file format should I use for the transfer?

Answer 1

Hi, nice question -

for the format, use JSON-LD (faster, more complete than e.g. ILCD), for the approach, yes that can work to some extent, you should enter the social indicators you want to analyse in the background system also to the foreground (environmental system), since you otherwise get no results for social impacts from your foreground model, and the environmental impacts will be limited to the foreground since it will be impossible to have them for the whole social background. Or use a combined database (soca).