Using the output in openLCA software

Using the output in openLCA software

openLCA is freely available software for performing life cycle assessment. The JSON-LD zip output files for a model can be used in openLCA versions >=1.6.

To use the JSON-LD files, a new openLCA database should be created with 'units and flow properties'. The following reference data needs to be imported into this database prior to imported the ELCI JSON-LD output:

1. The Federal LCA Commons Elementary Flow List corresponding to the version specified in the model config file. Type: JSON-LD .zip archive. Save the file to your local machine and import into the new database in openLCA using File>>Import>> and selecting 'Linked Data(JSON-LD)' as the type and selecting the downloaded .zip file.
2. The US EPA Data Quality Systems for openLCA. Type: JSON-LD .zip archive. See the previous step for import instructions.
3. The locations database (location TDB). Type: openLCA database format .zolca. This is imported the same way as JSON-LD except 'Import entire database' is selected as the type.

Then the database is ready to import the .zip containing the json-ld files for the eLCI database of interest, using the same methods for JSON-LD import as described above.