ILCD-EL of elementary flow(uuid) in some databases

Question

Hello, the ILCD handbook on the EPLCA official website states that to achieve LCA modeling compliant with ILCD standards, one must use the elementary flows they have published (and their UUIDs must also match). I wonder if my understanding above is correct. Now, there are some databases (such as ELCD, etc.) that meet ILCD-EL requirements in other aspects. However, one issue is that the UUIDs of many elementary flows do not match those required by ILCD. In this case, can modeling using such databases still comply with ILCD-EL requirements? I think it is likely not compliant. This is a point that confuses me a lot. After importing into openLCA, what further measures can be taken to make the UUIDs of elementary flows correspond to those specified by ILCD, so that the modeling can truly be compliant? I would be extremely grateful for your reply.

Answer 1

Very good question! Basically, you must use the EF reference flow package. The EF database that we distribute with the DAL contains that, data from the LCDN nodes should support that too but in a less clean way (see other discussions here, duplicate flows, UUIDs, etc.). You can also import a flow or datasets in ILCD format into openLCA, the UUID will not be changed if you do not tell openLCA to do so (via a mapping file e.g.).