As LCA and DFE become more prominent in North America, the development of LCA databases is growing. These activities cover a variety of information addressing the environmental aspects of materials. This paper explores the current state of materials data availability looking at sources and data quality. Included will be a discussion of recent activities such as BEES, USAMP, and the Canadian Raw Materials Database. Inherent to these data collection activities, is the need to address issues of data quality, as oulined by the ISO 14040 and 14041 guidelines. Additionally, data collection activities initiate the movement towards more formalized exchanges of data. For example, the ISO 14048-standard for data exchagne format enables analysts to transfer data between companies, projects and different software platforms while maintaining quality and integrity of ata. This paper will address these three relevant issues pertaining to ecomaterials: materials data avalability; data quality; and data exchange.
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