NREL and its partners created the U.S. Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) Database to help life cycle assessment (LCA) practitioners answer questions about environmental impact. This database provides individual gate-to-gate, cradle-to-gate and cradle-to-grave accounting of the energy and material flows into and out of the environment that are associated with producing a material, component, or assembly in the U.S.
The goals of the U.S. LCI Database project are:
Maintain data quality and transparency
Cover commonly used materials, products, and processes in the United States with up-to-date, critically reviewed LCI data
Support the expanded use of LCA as an environmental decision-making tool
Maintain compatibility with international LCI databases