EeBGuide Project - New website launched

The EeB Guide Project is a project financed by the European Commission under the seventh framework program. This project will develop documents and instruments providing operational guidance for Life Cycle Assessment studies of the Energy Efficient Buildings (EEB) Initiative.

The project, which started on November 2011, is intended to last one year. Six partners are involved in the project: the Fraunhofer-Institut für Bauphysik (FhG-IBP), PE INTERNATIONAL, Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment (CSTB), Escola Superior de Comerc International (ESCI), British Research Establishment (BRE) and Christer Sjöström Consultancy.

Development of a guidance document for energy efficient buildings

The overall goal of this project is to develop a specific guidance document for application to Energy Efficient Buildings and related training material with courses for practitioners in industry and research. This is to be based on and in line with the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook, co-developed by the European Commission’s JRC-IES. To ensure a high acceptance of the stakeholders, the ILCD requirements will be crossed with the new CEN/TC 350 standards like FprEN 15804 (Environmental Performance on product level) or FprEN 15978 (Environmental Performance at the building level).

The goal: high-quality Life Cycle Assessment studies

The concept for this guidance document will be based on two core elements: an extensive list of elements that need to be taken into account when dealing with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) within the Energy-efficient Buildings Initiative and the solution approaches how to address different issues and an extensive guidance including examples and operational instructions on how to conduct adequate, high-quality LCA studies.

New website launched

PE has set up the website that will serve as the platform to enable efficient expert and public consultation procedures.

More information: www.eebguide.eu 

Draft version of the EU environmental footprinting methodology released

The European Commission has released a draft version of the EU environmental footprinting methodology currently under development.

DG ENV is now working together with the Commission’s JRC IES and other European Commission services towards the development of a harmonised methodology for the calculation of the environmental footprint of products (including carbon footprint).

This methodology will be developed building on the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook as well as other existing methodological standards and guidance documents (ISO 14040-44, PAS 2050, BP X30, WRI/WBCSD GHG protocol, Sustainability Consortium, ISO 14025, Ecological Footprint, etc).


You can find more information and the draft methodology here

LCA for Fuel Cells & H2 Technologies - Invitation to Public Consultation

The project FC-HyGuide aims to develop a Guidance Document for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies on hydrogen production and fuel cell technologies. FC and H2 are technologies with a broad range of functions, applications and input processes. PE INTERNATIONAL has the function of the project coordinator and supports the project with its broad experience in the field of life cycle assessment.

Based on the ILCD Handbook procedure and together with specific examples the Guidance Document will offer step by step guidance for LCA practitioners in industry as well as for researchers.

After several months of project work, the project team led by PE INTERNATIONAL and ENEA wants to now invite Stakeholders and interested people to critically comment on the advanced Guidance Document for hydrogen production and fuel cell technologies.

The main goal of this step is to make sure to meet practical requirements of real life cases in a comprehensive way, in the final Guidance Document. Here, individuals and organisations involved in these fields have the possibility to give their inputs and articulate possible concerns.

This public consultation will be carried out from April 1 2011 until April 30 2011. Two documents (one for hydrogen production and one for fuel cell technologies), the templates for comments and further information can be found on: www.fc-hyguide.eu/pc

For more information please contact Oliver Schuller

The project is financed by the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU), a public private partnership supporting research, technological development and demonstration activities in fuel cell and hydrogen energy technologies in Europe.

GaBi 4.4 released

GaBi 4.4 was released on the 21^st of September. The new GaBi 4.4 provides assistance in documenting your processes according to the ILCD format and in preparing the documentation for Environmental Product Declaration certification.  It also takes into account social aspects with the ‘Life Cycle Working Environment’ approach and considers the effects of land use. This update was the first to be delivered completely electronically in the GaBi 4 software family and makes the update procedure much quicker, more reliable and much easier for the user. Find out more about these exciting developments here

GaBi 4.4 update release

We are happy to announce that the GaBi 4.4 update will soon be released. This update includes a number of new features and functionality in response to changes in the Life Cycle Assessment industry.

We’ve implemented the ILCD format, and added a number of features that should make documenting process information, and preparing documentation for EPD certification, much easier. We’ve also updated and extended database content by adding life cycle working environment and land use data, adding the complete ELCD database and splitting the existing carbon dioxide flows into CO2 from fossil resources and CO2 from biotic resources. These changes should improve your modelling flexibility and improve your analysis. For those using GaBi’s automatic update function, the software will update automatically. Others will receive the update via email or post. Once successfully updated, you will have the opportunity to view a short video explaining the improvements in more detail. We look forward to the release!

www.gabi-software.com

GaBi supports the new ILCD data format - GaBi unterstützt das neue ILCD Datenformat

GaBi supports the new ILCD data format, developed in an international effort co-ordinated by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. The ILCD format will be available with the next release of the GaBi software.

GaBi unterstützt das neue ILCD Datenformat, welches im internationalen Rahmen entwickelt und vom Joint Research Centre (JRC) der Europäischen Kommission koordiniert wurde. Das ILCD-Datenformat ist mit dem nächsten GaBi Software-Release verfügbar.