Continuous improvement of openLCA

About the project

Aim: GreenDelta´s developer team is continuously working on improving the performance of openLCA. This includes the implementation of new features for enhancing the modelling, calculation and evaluation opportunities as well as fixing minor bugs that appeared in prior versions of the software and are documented on the GreenDelta GitHub channel.

Background: Life Cycle assessment is probably the most important methodological framework for measuring sustainability. Based on the standards of ISO 14040/14044, a diverse range of more specific approaches such as carbon/water footprinting and environmental product declaration, or other integrated concepts such as Product Environmental Footprints, Circular Economy and Organizational Environmental Footprint have evolved. They all have in common that they follow a life cycle approach at its core. openLCA is a free software tool to flexibly model product systems, and to calculate the environmental, social, and economic impacts of it. The idea of GreenDelta is to keep the software flexible, powerful, feature-rich and user friendly – and yet open source. Therefore, it takes continuous work and collaboration for ensuring a smooth operation and for implementing new features. NETL, US EPA and USDA support the continuous development of openLCA financially and with their technical input.

In practice: Current topics that GreenDelta is working on include a parameter name update function, improvement of the Sankey diagram, simplification of the regionalized calculation, scenario export options, automatic updates to projects or product systems upon changes of underlying processes or flows, and many others.