Source references are centrally collected and managed in a master file for the entire ecoinvent data- base.
When the source is not a scientific article, book-chapter or separate publication, the title field is re- used to refer to e.g. "Measurement documentation of company XY" (for measurements on site), "Oral communication, company XY" or "Personal written communication, Mr./Mrs. XY, company Z". Cita- tions of large reference works include chapter numbers, table numbers and/or page numbers.
[Changes relative to ecoinvent version 2: References to sources are now placed directly in each da- taset, and data sources are publicly available, preferably in the master file for sources. For datasets transferred from ecoinvent version 2, the sources may not all be transferred to the master file for sources but may temporarily be placed as free text, either in the dataset or on a referenced web-site (for sources used for many datasets).]
7.6
Version management
The ecoSpold format defines two version numbers for each dataset: Release and Revision, each with a major and minor component.
The release number defines the version of the ecoinvent database that the dataset is part of. A new re- lease number is only entered by the database administrator when a new production database is created in preparation of the next official release (see Chapter 3). Both the major and minor release compo- nent can be changed when a new database is created. All datasets of one database must have the same release number and once this is entered on database creation it is not changed later on.
The revision number is specific to each dataset and is independent of the overall database release ver- sion. The major revision component reflects the amount of accepted changes to the dataset. It is in- creased automatically by the database software when changes to the dataset have been accepted by the ecoinvent review procedure and the revised dataset is uploaded to the production database. It will only increase over time and must not be changed manually. The minor revision component describes ver- sions of the dataset during the editing process before it is submitted for review. It is increased auto- matically by the ecoEditor software every time the data provider saves changes made to the dataset either locally or as a draft on the ecoinvent server. The minor revision component is reset to “1” each time the major revision component is increased (when changes to a dataset are accepted by a review- er).
The revision number may also be used to notice concurrent editing of the same dataset by two data providers. If two data providers request the same dataset for editing, one will finish the editing before the other. If the reviewer accepted the changes of the first data provider, the major revision compo- nent will have increased by the time the second data provider submits changes for review. The review process must then reject the second changes because they are not based on the current version of the
dataset. The data provider would have to request the current version of the dataset for editing and en- ter the necessary changes again.
[Changes relative to ecoinvent version 2: The version management is more stringent and automati- cally controlled than in version 2.]
8
Language
8.1
Default language
British English is used as the default language for all names and text fields.
8.2
Language versions
Outlook: Language versions of the ecoinvent database are foreseen and supported by the ecoSpold 2 format. However, the implementation of this has been postponed beyond the release of version 3.0. Language versions of datasets are produced by translating all text fields and storing the translated text fields with the appropriate 2 letter ISO 639-1 language code, as provided in the language master file. The language versions are all stored in the same dataset, and can be viewed by choosing the corre- sponding language code as default when requesting to view a dataset.
We encourage data providers to provide translations and initiate systematic translation projects. [Changes relative to ecoinvent version 2: German names of activities and classifications from ver- sion 2 are not maintained in version 3.]
9
Naming conventions
9.1
General
It is strived for to use the most common technical nomenclature and units, and avoiding the use of ab- breviations. All information in the name fields is written in full. Considering that the database is used by people from many different technical and non-technical fields, it is strived for to make the names generally understandable and provide adequate context, e.g. rather “electrical connector, peripheral component interconnect buss” than “bus, PCI”. No brackets are used, except when required by other conventions, e.g. in chemical formulas. Singular is used as far as possible, e.g. “barley grain”, not “barley grains”.
The lists of names for activities, intermediate exchanges, elementary exchanges, units, classifications and tags, geographical locations, macro-economic scenarios, and system models, are centrally collect- ed and managed. The full list of names is available via the ecoEditor software. Likewise, master files are centrally collected and managed for persons, default properties and parameters, and sources.
9.2
Activities
An activity dataset is identified uniquely by its activity name, the geographical location (see Chapter 4.2.1), the time period (see Chapter 4.2.2), the macro-economic scenario (see Chapter 4.2.3), and the system model (see Chapter 4.13.2). The first four of these identifying fields, i.e. all except the system model, are represented by a universally unique identifier (UUID) for easy machine identification. This implies that the UUID of an activity dataset is the same in all system models, which facilitates the linking of the datasets in different system models, see Chapter 14. In addition, all activities are classi- fied according to the ISIC classification with further sub-divisions made by ecoinvent (see Chapter 9.7).
Activity names are spelled with lower case starting letter, i.e. “lime production”, not “Lime produc- tion”.
The simplest form of an activity name is generated from the name of the reference product (see be- low) with the addition “production”, e.g. “lime production” after the product “lime”. Further specifi- cations of the product, raw material or production route are added after a comma, e.g. “lime produc- tion, from carbonation”. The term “construction” is used instead of “production” for activities that have buildings, transport infrastructure, factories and facilities as their product outputs.
If the activity has multiple products, the activity can instead be named after the nature of the process, e.g. “air separation, cryogenic” with the products “oxygen”, “nitrogen” and “argon”.
When an activity is described in terms of the process of converting a raw material to a product, the order [process], [raw material], [detail of process] is preferred, e.g. “leaching of spodumene with sul- phuric acid”, not “sulphuric acid leaching of spodumene”, thus avoiding to place the raw material in the beginning of the activity name.
Whenever possible, the “…ing” ending is reserved for services and avoided for activities with a mate- rial product.
For infrastructure, the name “factory” or “facility” is preferred to “plant”, except in traditional combi- nations such as “power plant”.
Dedicated treatment activities are preferably named “treatment of [material treated], [nature or output of the treatment]”, e.g. “treatment of waste paint, sanitary landfill“, “treatment of slaughterhouse waste, rendering” or “treatment of biogas, purification to methane 96 vol-%”.
Production and supply mixes end with the terms “, production mix” and “, supply mix” respectively. Market activities start with the term “market for ”.
Activity datasets with the term “operation” as part of their name signifies activities that use specific infrastructures, e.g. “mine operation” as opposed to “mine construction”. Operation datasets therefore always have inputs of infrastructure. Thus, “operation” is used as a synonym for “use”. The term is used both for industrial activities and household activities.
The geographical and temporal locations of activities are described in separate data fields and are not required in the name field.
[Changes relative to ecoinvent version 2: The naming conventions are more stringent in some as- pects. The unit is no longer an identifying field, i.e. the same dataset cannot exist with different units for the reference product. Different units can instead be applied for properties of the reference prod- uct. Datasets in version 2, which are found in duplicate units, have been merged to one dataset, choos- ing the most appropriate unit as the main unit and adding a property with the secondary unit.]