Download of EcoSpold Files

• In the "Infrastructure" column, select, if you wish to include infrastructure ("With") or exclude infrastructure ("Without") or if "Both" variants should be included. Default setting: "With". ´
• In the "LCI data" column, select, if you wish to receive the process data as "LCI results" or as "unit process raw data". Alternatively you can mark "Both" if you wish that the file includes both variants. Default setting is "LCI results".
• In the "Impact Assessment" column, select, if you want the process data in the file to include an impact assessment ("With") or excluding impact assessment ("Without"). Default setting is the option "Without".

For further information about these options please refer to the official documentation of the EcoSpold data format or contact the ecoinvent support ("Members" only).

The following table shows the possible combinations of the three options, which can be set for creating the EcoSpold files:  

For the datasets of the types "elementary flow" and "impact assessment methods" no further options must be specified.

After setting the options, press the button "Generate EcoSpold files". The generated files will be displayed on the "Download EcoSpold files" page.

A maximum of ten EcoSpold files will be created, depending on the option settings for the process data (up to eight EcoSpold files for process data, one for elementary flows and one for impact assessment methods. Each file contains all (!) selected datasets of that type from the download-basket.

Start Download

To actually download the files, right mouse-click on the item name ("Process" or "Elementary Flow" or "Impact Assesment Method"). From the context-menu select the command  "Save Link As..." (Netscape Navigator) respectively "Save Target As..." (Internet Explorer). When using another browser application or another language version of one of the two common browsers, please choose the appropriate similar command.

With the Netscape Navigator you can alternatively left mouse-click on the item name directly and confirm that you wish to save the downloaded file on the disk.  Note: this does not work with the Internet Explorer: Left mouse-clicking will display the content of the file in the XML format in the browser window.

Please start the download for all (up to ten) files. Files will be saved with the extension XML to the selected directory. A one-click download of all listed EcoSpold files at once is not possible at the moment.

How to decode the name of a downloaded EcoSpold file 

The name of the downloaded and saved file is composed as follows:

The first section of the file name is the login name. Separated by an underscore it is followed by the letter 'i' (=infrastructure), if the process contains infrastructure data, otherwise the letter 'o' (=without) can be found. On the next position there is an 'r' (=results), if the file contains LCI results, or an 'u' (=unit process), if the file contains unit process raw data. If impact assessment is included in the file, the letter 'a' (=assessment‘) is set on the next position of the file name, files without impact assessment on the other hand show the letter 'i' (=inventory)here. On the next position the suffix '_lcia' is added to the file name XML file contains an impact assessment method. The suffix '_proc' is used if the file contains process data or  '_elem' if the file contains elementary flow data. Finally date and time of the generation of the file are added.