Update to ecoinvent 3.8

ecoinvent 3.8 database is now available in One Click LCA's EPD tools. Below are the details of the implemented changes:

1. For GWP-biogenic, biogenic CO2 emissions not related to the product biogenic carbon content itself were removed. This means that the indicator now reports only the biogenic CO2 included in the product carbon content and other GHGs affecting the impact category (CO, CH4, etc.,).

2. For the energy indicators, a number of corrections were made:

i. For treatment datasets, the primary energy use as raw material (both non-renewable (PENRM) and renewable (PERM)) values that were not zero were set to zero.

ii. For secondary materials, total primary energy use (non-renewable(PENRT) and renewable (PERT)) values were underestimated since the values of primary energy use as raw material values (PENRM & PERM) were not included. They were corrected by adding PERM and PENRM values to PERT and PENRT, respectively, and the results were recalculated. This procedure also corrects the negative primary energy use as energy values (renewable (PERE) and non-renewable (PENRE)).

iii. For those datasets whose PENRE values were negative due to lower economic allocation, such as natural gas and lignite, recalculated and corrected values of PENRE in ecoinvent version 3.9 were adopted. A similar approach has been extended to other datasets such as coal and peat, where 5% of PENRM values for mining, and 10% of PENRM values for market datasets including transportation were assumed for PENRE values.

iv. To ensure modeling consistency, PENRT values were assumed equal to ADPf (Abiotic Depletion Potential of fossil fuel) where the difference between them could be more than 0.1% except in datasets where this assumption could distort innate material energy (or lower heating calorific value of the product).