EPD Data Format – Developer Quick Start Guide
About this document
This document serves as a starting point for software developers who want to integrate
support for the ÖKOBAUDAT’s EPD data format and/or data exchange to or from the
ÖKOBAUDAT into their software applications.
Data Format – General Information
The data format used to describe EPDs in the ÖKOBAUDAT database is based on the
European Commission’s ILCD Format (see the information provided at
http://eplca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/LCDN/developer.xhtml).
Figure 1 - ILCD format data set types
Information that cannot be modelled using the ILCD Format’s native constructs is
documented using extensions in the EPD namespace (http://www.iai.kit.edu/EPD/2013
namespace URI). These additional fields are documented in detail in the EPD_DataSet.html
and EPD_FlowDataSet.html documents in the doc/schemadoc/ folder of the documentation
package, where they are highlighted in a different color for better identification.
Figure 2 - Extending the ILCD data format
Sample documents which illustrate the various use cases are provided in the folder
sample_data, as well as XSL stylesheets that can be used to view datasets in HTML
representation directly in the browser. The underlying XML Schema documents are also
provided in the folder schemas.
Data Format – Concepts
For describing an EPD, the ILCD format’s „Process“ dataset is used. This holds the
relevant metadat as well as the inventory results (in the exchanges section) and the
impact assessment results (in the LCIAResults section) for all lifecycle stages of the
product.
The actual product is described as a „Flow“ dataset (of type „Product flow“) that is
attached to the process as its reference flow. Hence, properties of the actual product, like
material properties such as density etc., can be included there. For physical and chemical
product properties, the MatML language (http://www.matml.org/) can be used. See the
example datasets for how to do this.
Figure 3 - Decoupling of product information
Furthermore, the decoupling of product information allows for modelling hierarchies of
products where a number of actual, vendor specific products may represent the same
generic product. This relationship is expressed by a reference documented in the „is A“-
field in a product flow.
Figure 4 - "is a"-references
Data Exchange via RESTful Service Interface
If the free and open source soda4LCA (http://www.iai.kit.edu/soda4LCA/) software is
used as technical platform to distribute data, datasets can be retrieved from or
submitted to the database directly from other applications via the software’s RESTful
service interface. The API documentation is provided in the folder doc in HTML and PDF
format.
For reading data from the database, no authentication is required. Authentication
credentials required for sumbission of datasets can be obtained from the operator of the
respective node.
