Background

This product-specific plant-specific declaration was created by collecting production data from the British Columbia, Canada location. Secondary data sources include those available in ecoinvent v3, Industry data 2.0, and US-EI 2.2 databases.

Allocation

The PCR prescribes where and how allocation occurs. Since only facility-level data were available, allocation among the facility's other products was necessary to determine the input and output flows associated with the product. The allocation of electricity, water, and fuel consumption was based on the percentage of production by mass for the fabricated clip systems. The mass allocation considered the ratio between each clip production and the total annual site production output. Additionally, no co‐products were produced during the fabrication processes.

Cut-off criteria

Cut-off criteria for the inclusion of mass and energy flows are 1% of renewable primary resource (energy) usage, 1% nonrenewable primary resource (energy) usage, 1% of the total mass input of that unit process, and 1% of environmental impacts. The total of neglected input flows per module does not exceed 5% of energy usage, mass, and environmental impacts. The only exceptions to these criteria are substances with hazardous and toxic properties, which must be listed even when the given process unit is under the cut-off criterion of 1% of the total mass. No known flows are deliberately excluded from this declaration; therefore, these criteria have been met. Biogenic carbon is included in reported results.

Quality

Inventory data quality is judged by its precision (measured, calculated, or estimated), completeness (e.g., unreported emissions), consistency (degree of uniformity of the methodology applied on a study serving as a data source), and representativeness (geographical, temporal, and technological).

To cover these requirements and to ensure reliable results, first-hand industry data in combination with consistent background LCA information from SimaPro Analyst 9.5, and the ecoinvent v3.9, Industry data 2.0, and US-EI 2.2 databases were used.

Sustainable Minds worked with Cascadia to obtain a comprehensive set of primary data associated with the manufacturing processes. The product system was checked for mass balance and completeness of the inventory. The data set was considered complete based on our understanding of the manufacturing site and a review with key stakeholders on the Cascadia team, and cut-off criteria were observed consistent with those prescribed in the PCR. Capital equipment was excluded as required by the PCR. Otherwise, no data was knowingly omitted. Where country-specific data were unavailable, global or rest-of-world averages were used as proxies to represent transportation in those locations. Additionally, no proxy data were used to represent materials and therefore did not have a significant impact of the results.

Primary data were collected with a similar level of detail, while background data were sourced primarily from the ecoinvent database, and other databases were used if data were not available in ecoinvent or the data set was judged to be more representative. Other methodological choices were made consistently throughout the model.