LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

GROUP 3, SESSION A: LABELLING, CONSUMERS, DIET 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Group 3, Session A : Labelling, Consumers, Diet
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
68. A life cycle C3 commons: communicate, collaborate, connect
Shelly Grist * , Mark Toleman
University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, Corresponding author. E-mail:
shelly.grist@usq.edu.au
Practitioners conducting life cycle assessments (LCA) are uniquely dependent on methodology, databases,
and tools, as wells as applications of LCA developed by their peers (Gnansounou et al., 2009; Suh et al.,
2004). Conferences such as LCA Food 2012 serve as a global forum. They provide a physical meeting
place for LCA practitioners from around the globe to share knowledge, discuss topics of interest to the community
and connect with peers. Unfortunately international conferences like LCA Food are annual at best
and not all who would benefit are able to attend. There is an on-going need for a meeting place, with relevant
community resources ‘held in common’. In essence a virtual community commons where LCA practitioners
can continue to communicate, collaborate and connect.
At LCA Food 2010 the authors presented a poster proposing an LCA community website. The proposal
outlined a virtual meeting place for community members: to find and share information through searchable
publication and data knowledgebases; to learn from each other by asking questions of authors, watching
online video tutorials and participating in discussion forums and blogs; and to connect with colleagues with
whom to collaborate.
The proposed LCA community website is being designed and developed now. The website is based on
SilverStripe, an open source framework and configuration management system (CMS). An open source
solution was selected in keeping with the design philosophy of a community commons. Once the community
site is completed both the site and its software will be available as a community resource. It’s hoped
that the LCA C3 Commons website on its own will prove to be a valuable resource for the global LCA
community. The solution in whole or in part will also be available for LCA organisations who wish to
download it and host it for their own use.
A working prototype will be available for LCA Food 2012 conference attendees to trial. Feedback will be
requested on existing features as well as suggestions for additional features.
References
Gnansounou E, Dauriat A, Villegas J, Panichelli L. Life cycle assessment of biofuels: Energy and greenhouse
gas balances. Bioresource Technology, 100: 4919-4930.
Suh S, Lenzen M, Treloar GJ, Hondo H, Horvath A, Huppes G, et al. System boundary selection in life-cycle
inventories using hybrid approaches. Environmental Science & Technology, 38: 657-664.
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