Why would somebody use a different software than openLCA?

Question

Hi,

I have been researching quite a bit about which software to use for conducting LCAs for a smallish company and i cant really seem to find any good reasons to invest a lot of many to buy another. The most important part is accurate data and buying additional ecoinvent license is still way cheaper.

Im sorry, its probably the wrong place to ask this question, but why is SimaPro used in higher numbers for publications? Are there any big advantages for using SimaPro? Or is it just used the most because its the most well known?

Answer 1

Nice question, my take would be:

• others have 5 persons or so in marketing and branding, and some people fall for that
• historically, SimaPro was first, and five years ago or so it was also better, and some authors do LCA publications in a very "conservative" way (checking scopus etc. what was important and done in the past, and do this then too). This slows down change.
• we are not promoting openLCA in an aggressive way; if you do not get that it is better then fine; there is a sufficient number of people who get it, and openLCA's advantage is not only price/money.
• SimaPro is not easy to learn, and those who use it may remember how hard this learning was, and may draw from there that becoming familiar with every LCA software is uber complicated, which leads to a reservation to try anything new

BUT: I think the situation is changing currently, a lot, especially since release of openLCA version 2. 

Best wishes,

Andreas