Calculating impact assessment with EPDs (OpenLCA 2.0 beta)

Question

Good afternoon.

For a research project, I am trying to compare the environmental impact of virgin and recycled construction materials based on existing EPDs. Here is the method that i followed:

1. I created a new impact assessment methods including only the two impact categories that are relevant for my analysis,

2. I created "Results" based on publically available EPDs for construction material (for the different modules A1-A5), specifying "impact assessment results" for each impact category of the method, and created the corresponding "EPDs".

2. I created an associated product flow for each EPDs created

3. I created a process having the created flows as input and generated the associated product system, and my idea was to calculate the environmental impact based on the results entered for the EPDs. The environmental impact is equal to zero so I guess the strategy wasnt correct.

Briefly, is there a way to integrate the impact assessment results of EPDs into an impact assessment of a product system with the version 2.0? 

Thanks a lot in advance,

Best,

Camille

Answer 1

Hi Camille,

good questions, and we will prepare some more documentation about the EPD modeling in openLCA. In principle, your approach seems correct. Of course the LCIA method needs to fit. If you want, post some screenshots so that I can understand better. And

"is there a way to integrate the impact assessment results of EPDs into an impact assessment of a product system with the version 2.0"

Yes, you can integrate EPDs in product systems, just as in 1.11 you used processes, and the EPD will contribute with the impact results to the overall results.

Comments

Hi Anderas, any hint based on my answer?
Thanks in advance,
Camille

Answer 2

Hey,

Thanks for your answer, I took some screenshot to describe better.

1. Here is the assessment method, where i just integrated 2 indicators for the test run: 

2. I then created EPDs results for the product i want to analyse (for exemple here for the phase A1-A3), including characterization factors for the 2 impact categories of my assessment method, and using the product flow as output

3. I then generated the EPDs for the product flow

4. When i click on the flow, there is no characterization factors (obvously because it is a product flow and not an elementary flow), but when i try to CREATE a process with this flows, there is also no impact analysis available (although the impact is indicated in the EPDs results above)

Did I misunderstand something? am I missing a step?

Thanks a lot in advance,

All the best,

Camille