Green Material Benchmarks

The 'Green Material Benchmarks' are aimed at assisting you in making improved material choices. All the materials in the One Click LCA database are categorized based on their class and subclass (e.g. 'insulation', and 'Glass wool insulation'). Within these classes, the materials are bench-marked against each other. This feature allows you to access that data in multiple different sections on the One Click LCA platform.

 

How do you the Green Material Benchmarks?

This feature is available in multiple sections of the One Click LCA platform. Below we explain where you can access the data provided by this feature.

Using the emission level filter

Because all of the materials are bench-marked against each other we are able to categorize their emissions into five groups. The best-performing materials (top 20%) in their benchmark will be marked with 'Very low' and get a dark green 'carbon cloud'. This gets worse in groups of 20% and is displayed in a color gradient from green to red. The worst performing 20% of materials in the benchmark will be marked with 'Very high' and have a dark red carbon cloud.

 

Use the 'C02e' filter to find the best performing materials

 

Understanding the carbon clouds in the search results

If you search for materials you will be able to see the 'carbon clouds' behind the material descriptions as well. This quickly gives you an indication as to which emission level group this particular material belongs to and might help you avoid picking those materials where possible. In some cases the carbon cloud might be missing - this happens if the data point has very unusual (usually very high) emissions compared to the other materials in the same emission level group. It will then not be displayed as a material having 'Very high' emissions, as its emissions might be 5 times higher than normally the worst-performing material (emission wise) in that emission level group.

Visible carbon clouds in the search results section

 

Checking the detailed green material benchmark information

If you click on the question mark beside any of the data points you will be able to access the detailed information of the material. In the below example, we clicked on the green question mark from one of the float glass materials and scrolled down a bit. There we then have the performance ranking. In this case, there are 35 different types of float glass in the database, and this particular material is ranked number 4, so it is marked in the 'Very Low' emission level group.

Detailed information showing the ranking

 

You are then also able to see the full ranking, which gives you an overview of all the materials in this particular subclass. Click on 'See full ranking' and a new tab will open displaying the data. In this display, you can also de-select the countries you might not want to include the data from.

Benchmark data for Glass Panes

 

If you scroll down you will also get a list with all these materials, which allows you also to copy the material names so you might use them in your project.

Bench-marked results listed

 

Results section

On the results page, in the analysis section, you will be able to see the top 10 materials which contribute the most emission-wise to your project. You can also change the impact category if you used tool reports on different environmental indicators. In the example below, we looked at the Global Warming Potential.

Top 10 contributing materials (GWP)

 

Now we see which materials are used, and we can quickly see some alternatives. Just click on 'Show sustainable alternatives' and a small window will open. In this example, we looked at Gypsum plasterboard alternatives, as the chosen resource in this project is in the 'Very high' emission level group.

It immediately displays some better-performing material options you could choose from. You can click the green question mark icon to get more information on those resources or choose to view the full ranking to perhaps exclude some countries by clicking the green graph icon after the 'see full ranking' message.

Quickly get some recommendations on better-performing materials.