AusLCI - AusLCI (Australian Life Cycle Inventory), ALCAS

Carbon footprints of 1,993 Australian products and services, from crops, food and materials to energy, transport and waste treatment, derived from the Australian Life Cycle Inventory database (AusLCI) and published by the Australian Life Cycle Assessment Society (ALCAS).

Non-profit
  • LCI
SpecialistRestricted licence
Factors
1,983
Values
5,916

One per year and method

Countries
2

14 regions, sub-national included

Edition
V48

published 1 Mar 2026 · all versions

Last loaded
19 Oct 2026

Report a newer version

Overview

AusLCI is Australia's national life cycle inventory database, an initiative of ALCAS: "a national, publicly accessible database of comprehensive and transparent environmental information on Australian products and services". Its Carbon Emission Factors workbook (AusLCI-CEF) gives the greenhouse gas intensity of each AusLCI process, in kg CO2e per unit of product or service. The factors are generated by Lifecycles from a version of AusLCI linked to Lifecycles' own background processes, which the publisher states is "not linked to the ecoinvent database".

We load version V48, dated March 2026 in the workbook and posted in May 2026: one workbook of 2,012 processes. ALCAS also publishes a separate set for the construction sector, which is not loaded.

At a glance

Publisher
AusLCI (Australian Life Cycle Inventory), ALCAS
Kind
Non-profit
Scope
Specialist
Home region
Australia
Edition
V48
Licence
Restricted licence (auslci-terms)

What open-climate.ai standardised

over the publisher's own fileHow we standardise
6 more things standardised

Audit checks

127 passed6 known limitations3 enforced when loadedlast run 22 Oct 2026

Checks we run on every load to keep the data above trustworthy. Counts are for this library; the grey figure is the same check across all libraries. Point at the i to see why a check matters.

What the statuses meanHow checks are countedWhy we checkHow checks are grouped

Needs attention

  • A unit label that names no basis folds one way

    Known limitation · 1 in this library · 2 in all libraries

  • Values that exclude a carbon pool list the gases behind the total

    Known limitation · 137 in this library · 180,272 in all libraries

  • No default value is withheld for poor quality

    Known limitation · 18 in this library

  • An activity's grouping key names only the activity

    Known limitation · 1 in this library · 12 in all libraries

  • Factor descriptions describe the factor, not the whole library

    Known limitation · 1 in this library · 2 in all libraries

  • Every factor is filed under the most specific category its source allows

    Known limitation · 2 in this library · 4,552 in all libraries

One category axis

Learn more
  • Every source category maps to our vocabulary

    Enforced when loaded

  • The publisher's classification is kept

    Passed

  • Every classification level has a valid parent

    Passed

  • Every product code comes with the codes above it

    Passed

  • A publisher's own classification is used only by that publisher

    Passed

  • A standard classification code has one label in every library

    Passed

Coded regions

Learn more
  • Every region is a known code

    Enforced when loaded

  • No named region is filed under a broader one

    Passed

  • Every region sits in the world hierarchy

    Passed

Canonical units

Learn more
  • Every unit is a known code

    Enforced when loaded

  • One source unit maps to one unit

    Passed

  • A unit label means the same in every library

    Passed

  • A unit label that names no basis folds one way

    Known limitation · 1 in this library · 2 in all libraries

Declared boundaries

Learn more
  • Every boundary states what it includes

    Passed

  • Boundary scope terms are known codes

    Passed

  • No two factors for the same activity partly overlap in scope

    Passed

  • Separate stages of one activity are linked as parts

    Passed

  • Every part of a factor states its boundary

    Passed

  • Every biofuel counted with its biogenic CO2 says how much

    Passed

  • No recycling credit is hidden inside a life-cycle total

    Passed

  • No burden value hides a credit inside it

    Passed · 348 in all libraries

Warming potentials

Learn more
  • Methane and nitrous oxide figures match the stated GWP

    Passed

  • Every convertible value has its AR6 version

    Passed

  • CO2e totals leave out what their basis excludes

    Passed

  • Values that exclude a carbon pool list the gases behind the total

    Known limitation · 137 in this library · 180,272 in all libraries

  • Standardised figures keep every gas the publisher lists

    Passed

  • Every value states what its CO2e total includes

    Passed

  • A library with no AR6 version at all has a recorded reason

    Passed

Electricity mix

Learn more
  • Every electricity factor states its mix

    Passed

  • The market-based value is the default

    Passed

  • One default value per factor and year

    Passed

  • Every green-electricity zero is a market-based value

    Passed

  • Green-electricity zeros are not rated below market-based peers

    Passed

Data quality

Learn more
  • Quality ratings fall inside their scale

    Passed

  • Every zero value is explained

    Passed

  • No default value is withheld for poor quality

    Known limitation · 18 in this library

  • No implausibly high per-kilogram value is rated reliable

    Passed

  • Every quality level gives a recognised reason

    Passed

  • A zero that is only a gap in the source is withheld

    Passed

  • The library is not rated entirely on one fallback quality level

    Passed

Languages

Learn more
  • Every factor has an English name

    Passed

  • Translations match the current source text

    Passed

  • Translations follow a corrected source text

    Passed

  • Recorded translations survive a reload

    Passed

  • Every served factor has a name

    Passed

  • Factors are searched on their English name where one exists

    Passed · 24 in all libraries

  • Every language with a main name also has a full name

    Passed

  • Full names are built from their parts in the same language

    Passed

  • Every text is labelled with its real language

    Passed

  • Every description is available for display and translation

    Passed

  • Every usage note is available for display and translation

    Passed

Traceable to the source

Learn more
  • Values traced to one source row agree with each other

    Passed

  • No duplicate factors are served

    Passed

  • No factor value claims two things that cannot both be true

    Passed

  • No energy factor answers a question about packaging or recycling

    Passed · 169 in all libraries

  • No factor value the publisher has withdrawn is still served

    Passed · 14,762 in all libraries

Other checks

  • One activity keeps one family across its units

    Passed · 8 in all libraries

  • An activity's grouping key names only the activity

    Known limitation · 1 in this library · 12 in all libraries

  • A Creative Commons credit names its licence

    Passed

  • No note of ours appears in the credit or licence notice

    Passed

  • The credit line carries no terms of use

    Passed

  • Every part links to a valid parent

    Passed

  • Every impact assessment method is a recognised code

    Passed

  • Summed totals keep their parts' classification

    Passed

  • Every summed total has a classification when its parts do

    Passed

  • An avoided credit is linked to the burden it belongs to

    Passed

  • Every value is typed as specific, generic or average

    Passed

  • Summed totals equal their parts on every gas

    Passed

  • No total is served when one of its parts is withheld

    Passed

  • Validity dates are the publisher's own, never guessed

    Passed

  • Every district-heat factor says whether the network's heat loss is included

    Passed · 2 in all libraries

  • Quality breakdowns use their scheme's axes

    Passed

  • No battery-electric vehicle carries tailpipe emissions

    Passed

  • The text of each estimated electricity total matches its current figures

    Passed

  • Every estimated factor carries its description in each language

    Passed

  • The text of each estimated factor matches its current figures

    Passed

  • A total built on an estimated part is marked as estimated

    Passed

  • Every estimate is built only from data we may redistribute

    Passed

  • No estimated factor is rated above the data it was built from

    Passed

  • No estimate sits beside a total of unclear scope

    Passed

  • No estimate repeats a stage the publisher's total already includes

    Passed

  • Every factor we complete has all of its estimated parts

    Passed · 25 in all libraries

  • No estimate is served where the publisher printed the figure

    Passed

  • We only estimate for publishers whose rule allows it

    Passed

  • Every estimated factor still matches the inputs it was computed from

    Passed

  • No estimated total competes with a published one

    Passed

  • Every factor with a current value has a default

    Passed

  • Every factor has a value, in a library that publishes values

    Passed

  • The text of each fuel supply-chain estimate matches its current figures

    Passed

  • No fuel supply-chain estimate is rated above what its method allows

    Passed

  • Every fuel estimate is built only from data we may redistribute

    Passed

  • Every fuel eligible for a supply-chain estimate is classified

    Passed

  • No fuel estimate is served where the publisher printed the supply-chain figure

    Passed

  • No supply-chain estimate is served for a fuel we deliberately left out

    Passed

  • Every fuel supply-chain estimate still matches the figures it was computed from

    Passed

  • Per-gas values are in CO2e

    Passed

  • Every tagged gas has a known GWP

    Passed

  • Every fixed group of regions lists what it covers

    Passed

  • Where both exist, the residual mix is shown before the green-tariff zero

    Passed

  • The newest edition of each value is the one marked current

    Passed

  • Every publisher has a rule on whether we estimate its missing parts

    Passed

  • Factor descriptions describe the factor, not the whole library

    Known limitation · 1 in this library · 2 in all libraries

  • Every library's licence has its rights recorded

    Passed

  • No fossil electricity mix has a zero fuel supply chain

    Passed

  • Every green-electricity zero is exactly zero and says why

    Passed

  • Green-electricity zeros cover power generation only

    Passed

  • Only a total we computed may mix GWP vintages

    Passed

  • Spend factors state their price year and basis

    Passed

  • No electricity or heat factor answers network losses against its stage

    Passed · 4 in all libraries

  • Every value has a number, a GWP version and a reference year

    Passed

  • Only a library cleared for it lists factors without their number

    Passed

  • Product footprints headline fossil carbon, like EPDs

    Passed

  • No factor description is too long to display in full

    Passed · 5 in all libraries

  • The library-wide answers on what a factor covers are up to date

    Passed

  • Every library-wide answer applies to at least one factor

    Passed · 3 in all libraries

  • Every excused arithmetic disagreement is stated

    Passed

  • Every reference year falls between 1960 and next year

    Passed

  • Each library's current edition is the one its values come from

    Passed

  • No two editions of a library share a release date

    Passed

  • The parts of a total are never listed twice under one label

    Passed

  • Every residual mix has its green-tariff counterpart

    Passed

  • Every factor points to its top parent

    Passed

  • Every conservative value carries the same label

    Passed

  • Every publisher's quality rating system is read

    Passed

  • Every factor is filed under the most specific category its source allows

    Known limitation · 2 in this library · 4,552 in all libraries

  • Every factor has a category

    Passed

  • Every categorised factor has a GHG Protocol scope

    Passed · 2 in all libraries

  • Single-gas values have their AR6 version

    Passed · 8 in all libraries

  • No factor answers a question that does not arise for it

    Passed · 11 in all libraries

  • No part is larger than the total it belongs to

    Passed

  • A supplier named in the source is linked to the factor

    Passed

  • No factor is an unlinked part of another factor

    Passed

  • A part covering the same scope as its total is linked to it

    Passed

  • Every device total that includes its use also gives the manufacturing share (embodied emissions)

    Passed · 112 in all libraries

  • No plug-in vehicle supply-chain estimate is rated above what its method allows

    Passed

  • A year in a factor's name matches its reference year

    Passed

How the audit works

What can I do with this data?

Restricted licence

Your rights

Restricted licence · auslci-terms
Use it to calculate my own footprint
Yes
Publish my footprint results
Yes, if
  • you imply no endorsement by the publisher

Publisher's published terms, checked on 14 Oct 2026

The AusLCI Licence Agreement, accepted at registration and again before each download, gives no warranty, asks users not to "make claims or comparisons based on partial life cycle data", to follow the most recent ISO standards on LCA and not to present claims as "endorsed by ALCAS, or the suppliers of data into AusLCI", and excludes liability. It grants use and says nothing on sharing, embedding or modifying the data; a permission request to ALCAS is the owner's to send (auslci, IMP-0069).

Credit line

AusLCI Carbon Emission Factors (AusLCI-CEF) V48, ALCAS / Lifecycles, March 2026. Normalised by open-climate.ai, https://open-climate.ai/factors/libraries/auslci/ (CC BY 4.0)

Not legal advice: the publisher's terms prevail.

Full terms

How to read these answers

Coverage

Browse factors

top 0 matches

SavedUnfoldFactorRegionBoundary
Unit
VersionPublishedLoadedStatusSource
V481 Mar 202619 Oct 2026ServedSource

Methodology

How this works
  • A value is the emissions of a process per its functional unit, counted from the start of the supply chain up to the point the process name states, such as "at farm", "at plant" or "at regional storage".
  • AusLCI prints four figures per process, each counting different carbon: fossil sources only; the carbon-neutrality figure, which adds biogenic methane and the CO2 of land-use change but leaves out biogenic CO2; the total, which counts every source net of removals; and the biogenic part on its own. We load the first three as three values of one factor and serve the carbon-neutrality figure by default, as the publisher recommends for product footprints "unless there is a specific need to account for biogenic carbon". It is the basis the GHG Protocol reports on: biogenic methane in, biogenic CO2 reported apart, as ISO 14067 also requires. The fossil figure and the total stay available beside it. The fossil figure differs from it most on livestock products and landfilled waste, where methane from digestion or decay counts in the carbon-neutrality figure only.
  • Our biogenic-CO2-excluded basis leaves land-use change out, while AusLCI's carbon-neutrality figure counts it. We file that figure under the biogenic-CO2-excluded basis, the nearest one, and store its land-use change part beside it so the difference stays visible. That part is under 1% of the figure on 1,796 of the 1,850 processes that print both; it is larger on the other 54, mostly animal feeds and other materials, where it reaches about a quarter, and two thirds for soybean meal; Tasmanian electricity is close to a quarter too.
  • The land-use change CO2 is also stored as a part of the total. The publisher warns that for agricultural processes it "may currently be un-accounted for in the EF values due to lack of data".
  • No figure counts infrastructure: "The GHG emission intensity values in this dataset do not account for infrastructure", meaning buildings, capital goods and equipment. Every factor states capital goods as excluded, and 171 factors, mostly energy, fuel and transport, state infrastructure as excluded too.
  • The global warming potentials are those of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) over 100 years, "consistent with the Australian National Greenhouse Accounts (NGA) reported in the National Inventory Report (NIR) for 2023". AusLCI prints no split by gas, so the values are not restated with newer potentials. Every value carries the year 2023, the inventory year; the workbook prints no data year per process.
  • Values can be negative where removals exceed emissions, as the workbook notes: 808 totals, 13 carbon-neutrality figures and 28 fossil figures are below zero, as printed.
  • We keep each functional unit, with three restatements of the same quantity: a value per MJ is served per kWh (multiplied by 3.6), a value per m³ is served per litre (divided by 1,000), and a value per hectare of field treated is served per m² of field area treated (divided by 10,000).
  • The boundary is read from the process name. Electricity "at power plant" is generation with its fuel chain; high and low voltage electricity adds the grid losses; transport is fuel chain plus use; a fuel burned (natural gas combusted, diesel burned in a building machine, liquefied petroleum gas in a furnace) is its fuel chain plus the combustion; waste treatment is end of life; "at farm" and similar phrases are cradle to that gate. The 1,719 processes whose name states no point in the chain are filed as cradle to gate, the scope the AusLCI licence states for its data ("cradle-to-gate processes where indicated, but not full life cycle data"), and marked as assigned by us, not published.
  • The region is read from the process name: an Australian state or territory, one of the three grids (NEM, SWIS, NWIS), or Australia as a whole when the name names none or several. Two processes are European and one is Swiss.
  • For electricity, the name gives the Scope 2 method: a production mix and a market for electricity are location-based, a residual mix is market-based.

Inventory year: a fixed 2023, the national inventory year the V48 AR5 GWPs follow; no per-process data year is printed.

What we import

  • 1,993 factors and 5,967 values from the 2,012 printed processes: three values on 1,987 factors, and the total alone on the 6 processes that print nothing else.
  • Not imported: 5 processes whose every figure is marked not available, and 14 exact repeats of another row (12 greasy wool rows and one urea row).
  • Units: 1,697 factors per kg, 109 per kWh (29 of them printed per MJ), 82 per m² of field area treated (printed per hectare), 63 per litre (printed per m³), 15 per tonne-kilometre, 10 per piece, 9 per kilometre, 3 per passenger-kilometre, 3 per m², one per hour and one per metre-year.
  • Each factor carries the publisher's classification as printed, up to four levels (process type, category and two subcategories), and an open-climate.ai category. Names are as printed, the publisher's typos included, and every factor carries the workbook's notes on infrastructure and land-use change. French names exist for 61 factors and German names for 69, machine translated. Every factor has an English usage note written by open-climate.ai.
  • Kept with each value but not served: the biogenic figure, a CO2e total of several gases rather than a single component.
  • Three process names keep the naming of the ecoinvent database ("/RER U/adapted"); the publisher states the set is not linked to ecoinvent, and we load them as printed.

Restricted. Users accept the AusLCI licence agreement when they register and again before each download. It gives no warranty on the data, asks users not to make claims or comparisons from partial life cycle data, to follow the most recent ISO standards on life cycle assessment and not to present their claims as endorsed by ALCAS or its data suppliers, and excludes any liability. Using the values for your own footprint and publishing results that imply no endorsement are allowed; the agreement says nothing on sharing the values with others, embedding them in a product or modifying them. Until ALCAS grants those in writing, the factors are listed and searchable with their descriptions, and the values are not shown on the public site. Attribution: "AusLCI Carbon Emission Factors (AusLCI-CEF) V48, ALCAS / Lifecycles, March 2026." Last verified 2026-10-14.

What can I do with this data?

Credit line: AusLCI Carbon Emission Factors (AusLCI-CEF) V48, ALCAS / Lifecycles, March 2026.

auslci-terms

Limitations

  • AusLCI prints no uncertainty and no quality indicator. All 5,967 values are rated medium, set by the library prior, since the workbook gives no quality score. How quality is rated.
  • The 1,719 cradle-to-gate boundaries we assigned are a reading of the publisher's general statement, not a statement per process.
  • Infrastructure is excluded everywhere, so a factor here reads lower than one that counts the plant, vehicles and equipment.
  • One edition is loaded. Since October 2026 the workbook can only be downloaded with an AusLCI account.

Changelog

  • 2026-10-15: version V48 loaded, 1,993 factors and 5,967 values.

Know a newer edition?

If AusLCI has published an edition we do not serve yet, tell us where to find it.