Generic materials are resources similar to Environmental Product Declarations (EPD), they can even be in the format of an EPD however they are often based on average emissions, or have the average emissions of a range of products.
Generic materials can be used when you are not sure yet which specific product you will end up choosing, or when the manufacturer of your chosen product does not have an EPD.
In One Click LCA, there are three sources of generic materials which you can make use of.
- Generic Data in the form of an EPD (which means published on an EPD Program Operator or EPD database).
- Generic Data from generic databases (e.g. ICE, EPiC)
- Generic Data from One Click LCA
Generic Data in the form of an EPD
Generic data can be published on any EPD program operator and this is generally done by associations. E.g. the association of plastic membrane manufacturers might work together to create a generic EPD from the range of different plastic membrane products on their market. In such cases, you will find these products as generic options, but they might have their data in the format of an EPD. Generic data can be published and found on any EPD program. The availability of generic EPDs depends on the characterization of the data, most generic data around the world is CML data, which means it will be available in tools that support CML data.
Generic Data from generic databases (e.g. ICE, EPiC)
Generic Data can also be found in the form of generic databases. These databases often offer locally relevant (e.g. covering one country) generic data, which is often carbon only. Such databases can be found in their respective local carbon tool (e.g. ICE can be found in the GLA / RICS tool) and in global carbon tools. There are only a small number of generic databases which means that for many countries there is no locally relevant generic database.
Generic Data from One Click LCA
Since above we mentioned that most countries do not have local relevant generic databases, we offer a solution to bridge the data gap for virtually any country.
Our in-house data specialists create generic data and publish new options almost every week. The updates which mention newly created generic data are listed here: One Click LCA Generic Data Updates 2022
For each generic data point that is created our data specialists perform a Product LCA assessment (in the case of building materials). Process generics, such as construction-related activities per hour, exist as well.
One Click LCA Generic data can be found in almost every calculation tool, except when the calculation regulation or certification does not allow the use of generic data.
There are hundreds of One Click LCA generics already available in the database, paired with One Click LCA generic constructions as well. If you have a suggestion for new generic data to be created, please reach out to our support team with the suggestion and what your use case for the product is.
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