Life cycle inventory data

This article describes the work carried out by the Promoting Sound Practices (PSP) working group of SPOLD (Society for the Promotion of Lifecycle Development) on the development of a common format for reporting life cycle inventory data in a comparable and transparent way, and hence towards the eventual goal of a decentralised network of life cycle inventory databases. Establishing such a database network depends on the achievement of consensus amongst potential users, data owners and data generators. Accordingly, building consensus has been, and will continue to be given, a high priority in this work. As well as a summary of the consensus building activities, this article provides an outline of the developing format and an indication of the next steps planned, some of which are already underway.