Open source tools have dramatically increased our ability to realize the true potential of life cycle assessment. We have tools for cloud calculations, uncertainty and sensitivity assessment, parametric modelling, interfaces to external models, inclusion of spatial and temporal information, generation of new databases for scenarios and prospective LCA, hybridization of multiple databases and database modelling perspectives, and much more. In this spring school we will build on these open source foundations, including Brightway and Premise, to make our inventory models better able to answer our research questions. The instructors will be Romain Sacchi and Chris Mutel, the developers of Premise and Brightway, and Michael Weinold, the creator and maintainer of the Brightway online documentation.
+Can traditional Bill of Materials-based LCA inventories meet the demand for high quality decision support at scale? This Autumn School will explore alternative models for inventory creation, deployment, validation, and quality assurance. In a break from previous DdS schools, the focus will not be on Brightway and friends, but on a new tool ecosystem to be developed in 2024 focused on data exchange and compatibility, reconciliation of conflicting observations, automatic validation, and user-friendly reporting and interpretation tools. Participants in previous DdS schools are welcome to apply for this school as well.
++ Open source tools have dramatically increased our ability to realize the true potential of life cycle assessment. We have tools for cloud calculations, uncertainty and sensitivity assessment, parametric modelling, interfaces to external models, inclusion of spatial and temporal information, generation of new databases for scenarios and prospective LCA, hybridization of multiple databases and database modelling perspectives, and much more. In this spring school we will build on these open source foundations, including Brightway and Premise, to make our inventory models better able to answer our research questions. The instructors will be Romain Sacchi and Chris Mutel, the developers of Premise and Brightway, and Michael Weinold, the creator and maintainer of the Brightway online documentation.
The course will focus on the shift from life cycle inventories as bills of materials to product system models. We will cover the basic of Brightway, and then go into best practices for model development. We will cover both the scientific side, including correlated inputs, sensitivity analysis for parsimonious models, and multiple types of uncertainty, and best practices in software architecture, including documentation standards and tools, testing, data and source version control, linting, and quick tool builders like Streamlit and Dash. We will then apply these concepts while diving deep into Premise, and will write parameterized models to generate custom scenario data. We will also explore the use of correlated uncertainty in Premise calculations.
The structure of the school starts with two days of interactive teaching sessions using Jupyter Notebooks. These notebooks include exercises, and we will discuss the solutions in class. From Wednesday to Friday, you will work in groups of around five people and apply these ideas in group projects. Each group will have a dedicated assistant. Groups will present their results on Friday afternoon.
This autumn school is primarily aimed at PhD and postdocs students who are studying or using life cycle assessment, but others are also welcome to apply. Students who complete the school will receive a certificate for 2 ETCS credit points. Enrolment is limited to 25 people.