Decide on downstream products which are now classified as input_products

[AnneSchoenauer]

I noticed that some of the inputs are actually not inputs but outputs - for example biowaste. Shall we exlcude them @Tilmon

@AnneSchoenauer can you share the specific example? Not entirely clear to me from your description :)

With regard to an example of biowaste please see here. In general the problem exists as we have a Life CYCLE assessment, i.e. also downstream and not only upstream information. What do you think?

One example is for example the company ihab-serour_00000005050260-001 (you can see it in the sector_profile_upstream_at_product_level which is producing coffee bean, green. One "input" product as we call it is biowaste. But biowaste is not an input product but rather an output (downstream).

[Tilmon]

@AnneSchoenauer Seems like you wanted to put a link to the "here"?

With regard to an example of biowaste please see here. In general the problem exists as we have a Life CYCLE assessment, i.e. also downstream and not only upstream information. What do you think?

That's a valid point. I don't think it has to be an issue, but needs further consideration. Here are some thoughts...

1. Ecoinvent states the following about waste

The waste management sector frequently overlaps with other sectors. For instance, where waste materials are recovered for recycling, they are reintroduced into industrial systems for reprocessing (e.g., recycling of steel scrap takes place in an electric arc furnace, which is a metallurgical activity). Similarly, where electrical and thermal energy is generated from waste management activities (e.g., incineration), it feeds into the electricity and heat sectors. Similarly, sludge from WWT is introduced to anaerobic digestion. However, it is worth mentioning here, that the term “treatment activity”, as considered in the ecoinvent database, refers to any activity that has a reference product with a negative sign. This effectively means that the activity supplies the service of treating, recycling, or disposing the reference product. So, in the ecoinvent database all treatment-, recycling-, and disposal activities are “treatment activities”.

2. here is an extract of the input data (only you have acccess bc of licenses) which shows the coffee bean example: for the main activity (activityName), there is an input (exchange name) "biowaste". You can see that the quantity is negative in exchange amount and that it's classified as Waste in by-product classificationValue.

3. What does this mean? The waste is actually not an input but rather an output, which Ecoinvent counts as a "negative" input. Is that a problem?

For Emission profile: Recycling waste is good for the climate, i.e. one could argue that the negative emissions from the waste depict a realistic profile on product / company level. But on input level, it may be confusing to have a negative sign...?

For Sector profile: Being able to recycle waste depends on the sector ambition of the industry where the biowaste is assigned to. Higher decarbonization targets would actually imply lower transition risk, because then there are better chances to find a market for biowaste, no? I.e., we would need to find a way to consider the negative sign in the sector profile indicator...

Now my brain needs a break. Curious to hear what you think!

[AnneSchoenauer]

:D Thanks a lot! This makes a lot of sense and it is a tricky one :)

Shall we have a content discussion - not next week but the week after and collect all content-related things and discuss this? I put something in our calendar!

Best Anne