Correcting remaining truncations in hybrid life cycle assessment database compilation

• Published in: Journal of industrial ecology 2022-02, Vol.26 (1), p.121-133
• Main Authors: Agez, Maxime, Muller, Elliot, Patouillard, Laure, Södersten, Carl‐Johan H., Arvesen, Anders, Margni, Manuele, Samson, Réjean, Majeau‐Bettez, Guillaume
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Algorithms; Application; capital endogenization; Categories; ecoinvent; environmental extensions; Evaluation; EXIOBASE; Gold; Hybridization; IMPACT WORLD; Life cycle analysis; Life cycle assessment; Life cycles; Methodology; Openness; Pollutants; Reconciliation; Research methodology; USEEIO
• ISSN: 1088-1980; 1530-9290
• DOI: 10.1111/jiec.13132

Hybrid life cycle assessment (HLCA) strives to combine process‐based life cycle assessment (PLCA) and environmentally extended input–output (EEIO) analysis to bridge gaps of both methodologies. The recent development of HLCA databases constitutes a major step forward in achieving complete system coverage. Nevertheless, current applications of HLCA still suffer from issues related to incompleteness of the inventory and data gaps: (1) hybridization without endogenizing the capital inputs of the EEIO database leads to underestimations, (2) the unreliability of price data hinders the application of streamlined HLCA for processes in some sectors, and (3) the sparse coverage of pollutants in multiregional EEIO databases limits the application of HLCA to a handful of impact categories. This paper aims at offering a methodology for tackling these issues in a streamlined manner and visualizing their effects on impact scores across an entire PLCA database and multiple impact categories. Data reconciliation algorithms are demonstrated on the PLCA database ecoinvent3.5 and the multiregional EEIO database EXIOBASE3. Instead of performing hybridization solely with annual product requirements, this hybridization approach incorporates endogenized capital requirements, demonstrates a novel hybridization methodology to bypass issues of price unavailability, estimates new pollutants to EXIOBASE3 environmental extensions, and thus yields improved inventories characterized in terms of 13 impact categories from the IMPACT World+ methodology. The effect of hybridization on the impact score of each process of ecoinvent3.5 varied from a few percentages to three‐fold increases, depending on the impact category and the process studied, displaying in which cases hybridization should be prioritized. This article met the requirements for a Gold—Gold JIE data openness badge described at http://jie.click/badges.