Software's for International Use

One Click LCA can be used in Pakistan. We implement a methodology to allow for regionalisation of datasets to reflect conditions where no native qualifying datasets exist. The regionalisation methodology we use is third party verified. As for complexity, it is very easy to use. If you wish to consider it, happy to help.

Panu, we're happy to have you mention your own product here on this forum, but we'd be most appreciative if you could be more inclusive in responses. Can you advise on whether other common software programs can be used in Pakistan? thanks! :)

Sorry, I really would not know.

Ok, thank you. Sorry, I'm a little sensitive about vendors talking about their own stuff on our forums. We try to keep it agnostic about specific products. But I realize you may not have knowledge of others.

Hello,

I've done a research on different software including asking experts in this forum, contacting experts where I work, Japan, and USGBC.

Long story short, you have software that can be used in any country, as long as you have the expertise to use those software and have access to an acceptable database.

Here is the response from USGBC:

"It is recommended that the team try to find a tool with local data sets. If that is not possible, then please use data sets that are relatively close and provide an narrative explanation. Note that regional data for non-US and non-European locations is available for several LCA Practitioner tools, such as SimaPro and GABI. It would not be acceptable to use a dataset that is not compliant with ISO 14044, or to omit any of the impact categories listed in the credit requirements.

Please refer to "Further Explanation" for this credit in the LEED Reference Guide for Building Design and Construction v4 and the 7/1/15 addenda (http://www.usgbc.org/sites/default/files/LEED%20BD+C%20v4%20Reference%20...) for more information."

Using LCA practitioner tools can be time consuming though.

Other less time consuming LCA tools which are designed specifically for LCAs on building projects include eTool, Elodie and IES IMPACT.

It sounds like, from a previous comment, that USGBC is being fairly lenient on regional specificity of the underlying data in the various user-friendly LCA tools for buildings. Which would suggest that all of the tools discussed here might be acceptable for the LEED LCA credit. While we generally recommend against performing LCA if accurate regional data is not available, in this case it's probably okay - it's still early days for the LCA credit, and the benefit right now might be more in creating awareness of LCA rather than technical accuracy. And hopefully creating a market driver for filling some of those data gaps.