Current Status of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) data in Japan

Atsushi Inaba*, Masayuki Sagisaka**
*Director, **Deputy Director
Research Centre for Life Cycle Assessment
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)

In order to promote LCA activities in Japan, the Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) launched a five-year national project entitled “Development of Life Cycle Impact Assessment for Products” (commonly known as “the LCA Project”) in 1998. The most important purpose of the project was to develop common LCA methodology as well as a highly reliable database. Activities over five years had resulted in the supply of LCI data on some 250 products. Industrial associations voluntarily provided data, which are currently made available on the Internet.

In addition, Type Ⅲ label have been paid attention so much in Japan . The LCA data of more than 340 products are disclosed at the web, but mainly focused on CO2 and other data related to utilization of fossil fuels.

In this presentation, these current situation concerning LCA activity in Japan will be reported and the data structure of those will be discussed.

Keywords: LCA, database