2025 is the year when we move the industrial ecology data commons prototype, launched in 2018, into a functional and helpful data archiving and retrieval tool for the entire industrial ecology community!
With the help of the IEF team and the CIRCOMOD EU Horizon project colleagues (https://circomod.eu/), we plan to collect, format, and upload a larger number of datasets on product material composition, energy intensity, and lifetimes of products, focussing on products and commodities including appliances, buildings, vehicles, infrastructure, industrial assets, and energy system technologies. Newly available data on circular economy measures and material criticality will be included as well. To be able to quickly find relevant data, we will expand and improve the IEDC’s search interfaces.
Critical mass sprint goal: By the end of 2025, the IEDC contains enough product and material-related data that searching the IEDC becomes a useful screening step and first iteration for data collection for MFA and LCA researchers and consultants alike. With its focus on products and commodities, the IEDC could even become a useful starting point for building the foreground of LCA product systems, next to serving socio-metabolic and industrial ecology research in general.
Access the database via https://www.database.industrialecology.uni-freiburg.de/
What are we looking for? The IEDC contains table-based data on socio-economic metabolism, grouped into datasets with a size of 1 to about 50000 values per dataset. Objects (products, materials) and processes in a given system are quantified at different layers (items, mass, energy, monetary, …), either at scale or per unit. More than 30 data types in eight data categories have been defined so far (see the data type scheme for an overview). In particular, our plan is to expand the IEDC with data of the following types:
- Flow (1_F_) by material
- Flow (1_F_) by product/commodity
- In-use stock (2_IUS_) by material
- In-use stock (2_IUS_) by product/commodity
- Population (2_P_) by country/region
- Lifetime (3_LT_) by product/commodity
- Material composition (3_MC_) by material
- Material composition (3_MC_) by product/commodity
- Specific energy consumption of products (3_EI_) by product/commodity
- Sector splits and other shares (3_SHA_) by chemical element
- Yield coefficient (4_PY_) by product/manufacturing process
- Yield coefficient (4_PY_) by material
- Process extension (4_PE_) by process
- Unit process inventory (4_UPI_) by process
- Criticality indicators (6_CR) by chemical element
- Criticality indicators (6_CR) by material
Why should I contribute? Submitting your data to the IEDC is free advertisement for your research and data! Most datasets are searchable by the name of the first author of the corresponding publication. Submitting your data to the IEDC increases the visibility of your research, and it helps others build on your work in their own research. A strong community database increases the visibility of the entire field and leads to better research output via the use of more comprehensive and up to date data. If you cannot or don’t want to share your data via the IEDC, it’s still possible to just submit an entry to the data catalogue, so that your data can be found and then obtained via other channels. This procedure also applies to datasets that are too large to be inserted into the IEDC or that are already consistently formatted in other data formats. Last but not least, using common data formats for the different data types and consistent labels for the different materials, products, etc. helps with the reuse and sharing of data across projects and research groups.
How can I contribute? In order to submit data to the IEDC, follow these steps:
- Check whether you have the necessary rights to share these data publicly. If yes, reach out to the IEDC team via in4mation*aet*indecol.uni-freiburg.de to check if your data are suitable for the IEDC.
- Identify what type your data belong to. See the list of data types and browse for and download examples from the main search interface (by entering the type into the search field: 1_F, 3_MC, etc.)
- Format your data into an IEDC data template, using the sample templates and following the instructions in the video tutorial provided on the validation page. When formatting your data to the IEDC format, please make an effort to use labels for materials, products, regions, etc. that are already defined in one of the IEDC classifications listed on the classification page. In particular, wherever possible with reasonable effort, please use the following classifications: 1 (chemical_elements) for chemical elements, 2 (regions_iso_iedc) for countries, 3 (time (list of years)), 14 (time_ranges (list of different time ranges)) for time, 4 (generic_materials_waste) for materials, 6 (broad_industry_groups) for processes, 7 (general_product_categories) for commodities and products, 10 (general_energy_carries) for different types of energy, 20 (LCI_data_layers) for indicating the layer of measurement in the ‘layer’ aspect, and 8 (basic_scenario_alternatives) for indicating different scenarios.
- New labels can be requested by listing them on an open Google Table. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jn-6MwT4HIWZL8eVAUu-1TN3ZemjlTN3tMCP3Jd9GCk/edit?usp=sharing See columns C-H on sheet ‘New_IEDC_Labels’.
- Run your templates through the validator and correct the description (step 1) and labels (step 2) according to the automatic feedback provided.
- Contact the IEDC team via in4mation*aet*indecol.uni-freiburg.de if your template is validated to upload the data.
On May 19th, 2025, a public webinar marked the start of the IEDC Critical Mass Sprint 2025. It was not recorded, as there are already several tutorial videos and other material available, see the links above.
How is it going? By August 2025, the first ca. 20 datasets were uploaded as part of the 2025 Critical Mass Sprint:
3_SHA_End_Use_Shares_USA_Streeck_2023
6_URB_CityBlocks_Sample_Freiburg_Germany_McShane_2025
3_LT_Plastics_Buildings_Germany_Schmidt_et_al_2025
3_LT_Electricity_System_Technologies_Victoria_et_al_2020
3_MC_Wooden_Multipurpose_Building_Buschbeck_2025
4_PY_Manufacturing_Allwood_2024
3_SHA_EndUseShares_Steel_Aluminium_Allwood_2025
3_MC_Buildings_UK_Variability_DAI_2025
1_F_Final_Metal_Demand_Watari_2020
3_LT_Cobalt_Products_GODOY-LEON_2020
4_SHR_Cobalt_Products_End_Uses_GODOY-LEON_2020
4_PY_Cobalt_Manufacturing_Recycling_GODOY-LEON_2020
3_MC_Buildings_Austria_Renovation_Maintenance_Lederer_2021
3_MC_Buildings_EU_Renovation_Maintenance_Damgaard_2022
1_F_Function_FreightTransp_History_EUROSTAT
1_F_Function_PassTransp_History_EUROSTAT
3_MC_Wind_Turbines_Godoy_Leon_2025
3_MC_Wind_Turbines_Carrara_2020
3_MC_Wind_Turbines_Farina_Anctil_2020
On top of that, several new classifications were created and existing ones updated.
Access the database via https://www.database.industrialecology.uni-freiburg.de/
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Good Information
Regards, Unissula