Title of the document in the language of the document

ELCD Data System

First full version now available, replacing the Beta-version from July 2006. Please exchange earlier copies downloaded before 14 February 2007

This section allows to view and to download the high quality Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) core data sets of this first version of the Commission's "European Reference Life Cycle Data System" (ELCD), v 1.0.1. They have been compiled and documented in the Commission's ELCD data format in context of a service contract on behalf of DG Environment and in technical and scientific support by JRC-IES from 2004 to 2006.

The database comprises - next to other sources - LCI data sets of the European Aluminium Association (EAA), the European Copper Institute (ECI), the European Confederation of Iron and Steel Industries (EUROFER), The Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe (PlasticsEurope, former APME), The European Federation of Corrugated Board Manufacturers (FEFCO), Groupement Ondulé (GO), and the European Container Board Organisation (ECO). All these data sets are officially provided and approved by the named association for publication in the Commission's ELCD core database. We wish to thank these associations as frontrunners in the development of LCA for this important voluntary support to LCA practitioners in Europe and beyond, towards a system of high quality and harmonised LCI data.

In order to view the LCI data sets, please either choose from the "Data sets (by category)" submenu, which you may find to the left, or use the search form.

[Please note, that the main purpose of the ELCD database is the integration into LCA tools and databases and that hence the possibilities to "work" with this system with your web-browser and on your harddisk is necessarily limited.]

You may download the ELCD database as a complete package; see more below. The option to download only single data sets will be implemented at a later moment of time.

You may use all these data sets free of charge in your work and also distribute them to third parties. For more details please refer to the copyright and license conditions, which will be provided when downloading the data sets and which can equally be accessed directly from here. We also encourage you to develop own ELCD-based data sets, based on the ELCD core data, and to make them available to third parties towards a growing, non-centralised system of consistent LCI data sets. Documentation and quality requirements for ELCD data sets can be found at http://lca.jrc.ec.europa.eu.

Import/export interfaces to mayor LCA tools for data sets in the ELCD format are expected to be available from mid 2007 onwards; so far the developers of the tools and databases BRE EnvPro DB, CMLCA, EDIP, EIME, eVerdEE, DIM, GaBi, KCL-ECO, LCA Evaluator, LEGEP, MIPS, Sabento, SimaPro, Sirii/SPINE, TEAM/DEAM, trainEE, and UMBERTO have committed to make a full import and expert interface free of cost available to their customers soon. Please contact your tool developer if your tool is not in the above list. If you are a developer of LCA databases or tools, please feel invited to contact us and also refer to the menu entry "Developer support".

Updates and extensions:

The ELCD core database will be extended during the upcoming years, starting in 2007, by integrating LCI data sets of further core materials, energy carriers, transport and waste management services etc. predominantly from European-level business associations. In 2007 also the first udate of some of the data sets is foreseen. On data harmonisation issues see the Disclaimer below.

In future (from about end 2007 onwards) this section will also provide global and European recommended Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) factors. In addition and already in 2007 the LCIA factors of the most well know LCIA methods CML-IA, Eco-indicator 99, EDIP97 and EDIP2003, EPS, EQO, Impact 2002+, LUCAS, and ReCiPe are expected to be made available for the reference elementary flow list of the ELCD database. This is possible due to the commitment of the developers of these methods who will provide them and make them freely available.

Disclaimer: Please note, that so far only internally reviewed and only partly harmonised LCI data sets are provided in this first version of the ELCD core database. All data sets are carefully selected, of high quality and in line with ISO 14040 and 14044, but are not to be considered as official reference data sets. The data sets are provided "as they are". A further methodological harmonisation and independent review are foreseen as soon as the recommended methods and the review process will have been developed within the Commission's project "European Platform on Life Cycle Assessment" (foreseen to be available in 2008); see http://lca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/. Please also refer to the "Important legal notice" on top of this page.