What is the motivation behind the development of the new LCA reference exchange format?
A common exchange format has to be able to carry the relevant information of all market relevant LCA formats to actually allow LCA practitioners to exchange relevant data to, from, and among 3rd party databases currently in use by industry, consultants, etc. Such a format was not yet existing by mid 2005. The LCA format for the ELCD database also has to meet certain further needs of the Commission and of the European industry regarding e.g. easy use, scope of documentation, data quality, review considerations, data management capabilities, technical robustness etc. It was hence necessary to develop a new inclusive reference format to carry the first version of the ELCD database. The reference format developed by the JRC aims to meet these needs. The format is based upon the ISO/TS 14048 documentation but is further specified and includes additional aspects and information items from a variety of widely used LCA database formats to optimise compatibility for data exchange. It underwent
