The Sustainability Consortium (TSC), an independent organization that works collaboratively to develop scientific tools that improves consumer product sustainability, is pleased to announce the release of its revised Open IO Computational Tool and Database to improve access to product life cycle information. Open IO is a comprehensive research project of The Sustainability Consortium that provides users with a fully accessible, transparent, economic input-output life cycle assessment database. Economic input-output models detail the interactions between industries and describe how each industry buys from and sells to other industries. By associating economic inputs and outputs with environmental impacts, Open IO provides environmental impacts that result from economic activities.
In addition to providing data for product environmental impacts, the unique feature of Open IO is that all users are given free access to underlying data. Open IO supports the work of The Sustainability Consortium to conduct scientific research and the development of standards and IT tools. Most recently, Open IO was used with other tools to identify environmental “Hot Spots” for selected consumer products including orange juice, wheat cereal, strawberry yogurt, surface cleaners, shower products, and laundry detergent.
In support of TSC’s commitment to open source and transparency, the Open IO site database will provide value to many different types of users, from engineers and industrial buyers who want to estimate the environmental impacts of products they are making or buying, to students and teachers who want to learn where environmental hotspots are. “Another key feature to this database is that it is the first in the country to be offered by any university and industry consortium and made available to end users at no cost, said Bonnie Nixon, Executive Director, The Sustainability Consortium.
About The Sustainability Consortium
The Sustainability Consortium is an independent organization of diverse global participants that work collaboratively to build a scientific foundation that drives innovation to improve consumer product sustainability. It develops transparent methodologies, tools and strategies to drive a new generation of products and supply networks that address environmental, social, and economic imperatives. The Sustainability Consortium advocates for a transparent process and system, not individuals or organizations. Arizona State University and the University of Arkansas jointly administer The Sustainability Consortium. Learn more at www.sustainabilityconsortium.org / Twitter: Follow @TSC_news