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LCA Technology: Data Interoperability: ecoSpold, ILCD, JSON-LD and EPD Formats

LCA Technology · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

All guide sections

Data Interoperability: ecoSpold, ILCD, JSON-LD and EPD Formats

Formats you will meet

  • ecoSpold2 - ecoinvent's XML schema: activity datasets plus exchange datasets, with master data for elementary flows, compartments, units and flow properties.
  • ILCD - XML datasets (process, flow, flow property, unit group, LCIA method, contact, source) validated against a compliance system; used by the EU EF node and many EPD tools.
  • openLCA JSON-LD - a zipped JSON-LD graph where each entity carries @type and @id; the most convenient round-trip format for openLCA and many APIs.
  • EPD formats - ILCD+EPD (InData / ECO Platform) and EN 15804 declarations with modules A1–D; ISO 14025 governs the declaration and the PCR governs the rules.
  • SPOLD'99 - legacy; convert rather than import directly.

Exchange workflow

Export processes with their flows and flow properties, not just the process list. Match entities by UUID where the format carries one, otherwise by name plus unit plus compartment. Verify unit conversion through flow properties (1 kWh = 3.6 MJ), confirm every exchange is linked, then re-run a reference calculation and compare it with the source tool's result before trusting the import.

Worked example

An ILCD zip imported into another tool yields 4% higher GWP. The cause is a flow-property conversion: electricity is expressed in MJ in the source, the target assumes kWh, and the factor is applied twice. Correcting the flow-property reference fixes the gap; comparing totals alone would never reveal it.

Traps

Matching by name alone (duplicate names exist across compartments); losing allocation rules during export; elementary flows collapsing to "unspecified"; incomplete LCIA method import so categories silently vanish; assuming JSON-LD and ILCD carry identical metadata; publishing without validating against the compliance rules.