Proxy Environmental Impact Data for LCA Material Gaps via Chemical Classification

A 508.2 KB Excel dataset provides proxy environmental impact distributions to fill data gaps in life cycle assessments. Ethan Ellingboe created this resource by classifying materials from the Federal LCA Commons and Ecoinvent databases into the ChemOnt chemical taxonomy using ClassyFire software. The method, last updated in April 2026, enables rapid estimation of impacts for under-specified materials during early design stages.

Use Cases

• Fill life cycle inventory data gaps for material inputs based on the described proxy method.
• Compare environmental impacts of competing designs using the generated proxy impact distributions.
• Classify materials by chemical structure for increased granularity relative to industrial classification.
• Apply automated material classification and probabilistic under-specification to any LCA database.

Strengths

• Dataset is 508.2 KB, making it a compact and easily shareable resource.
• Method is applied to material production processes from two established databases: Federal LCA Commons and Ecoinvent.
• Uses the open-source chemical classification software ClassyFire and the ChemOnt taxonomy.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect bias inherent to the source databases used for classification.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Materials were classified into the ChemOnt chemical taxonomy using ClassyFire, with proxy impact distributions generated from publicly available LCI data.

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-14 12:03:19; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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