This article describes the work carried out by the Promoting Sound Practices (PSP) working group of SPOLD (Society for the Promotion of Lifecycle Development) on the development of a common format for reporting life cycle inventory data in a comparable and transparent way, and hence towards the eventual goal of a decentralised network of life cycle inventory databases. Establishing such a database network depends on the achievement of consensus amongst potential users, data owners and data generators. Accordingly, building consensus has been, and will continue to be given, a high priority in this work. As well as a summary of the consensus building activities, this article provides an outline of the developing format and an indication of the next steps planned, some of which are already underway.
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The article frames a shared reporting format as a way to make life cycle inventory data more comparable and transparent. It connects this work to a longer-term goal: a decentralised network of inventory databases, where information can be developed and maintained by different contributors while still being reported in a form that can be understood across the network.
Developing such a format requires agreement among potential users, data owners and data generators. The SPOLD working group therefore treated consensus-building as a central part of the work, alongside describing the format itself. The paper summarises these consensus activities, outlines the format under development and identifies next steps, including work that was already under way when the article was written. It presents the format as an evolving collaborative effort rather than a finished specification.
