Methodology for building LCA-compliant national inventories of emissions and resource extraction : background methodology for supporting calculation of product environmental footprint normalisation factors and resource efficiency indicators for EU

In the context of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), according to ISO 14044 (ISO 2006), normalisation is an optional step of Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) which allows the practitioner expressing results after characterization using a common reference impact. This supports the comparison between alternatives using reference numerical scores. The normalisation factors express the total impact of a reference region for a certain impact category (e.g. climate change, eutrophication, etc.) in a reference year. This document provides the background methodology for building emission and resource inventories for calculating normalisation factors (NFs). The inventory is primarily based on extensive data collection at EU level. For missing flows, extrapolation strategies have been adopted and gap filling activities undertaken for their calculation. We present underpinning methodology for database population and we present and discuss possible source of outliers/ uncertainties.