Transportation can be an important component of the environmental impact of products, involving the movement of raw materials, goods, and waste throughout their life cycle. Understanding how to accurately model transport within Mobius is essential for conducting comprehensive Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) and enhancing sustainability efforts. This article answers the following questions:
How to link transport to objects?
How to model transport efficiently?
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Feel like you're missing information? This article builds upon the following article, check it out if you want to learn more:
How to link transport to objects?
Once you've calculated ton kilometers (tkm), it's time to incorporate them into your product or material models. While you can add transport as separate items to your Product’s inventory, we typically recommend adding it to the specific material. Typically, all transport impacts are material-specific. Here’s how that is done:
1. Navigate to the relevant object of the material: Access the Product inventory of the product to which you want to add transport data.
2. Add transport as a subitem: Click the plus sign (+) next to the object you wish to add transport to, add a new subitem, and create a transport object, specifying the calculated tkm value (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Adding a transport item to an object in Mobius.
Video tutorial
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How to model transport efficiently?
In instances where multiple objects share identical transportation routes but differ in weight, scalable transport modeling offers efficiency. However, ton kilometer (tkm), ecoinvent’s functional unit, can be abstract because the amount of weight and kilometers transported are combined into one number. It can be challenging to separate them again or scale them without knowing one of the numbers. Instead, it is possible to scale tkm based on the mass you’re transporting. This is possible when the distance for multiple goods is identical (e.g., they have the same supplier), but the weight of the goods is different.
1. Create a new transport object: Go to your Object library and create a new object that specifies the transport route in the name (e.g., "150km transport from supplier 'X' to factory 'Y'"). Fill in the unit as kilograms (kg) - the mass unit enables scalability (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Creating a fixed distance transport object in Mobius.
2. Calculate tkm for 1kg of material over a specified distance: Determine the tkm value for transporting 1kg of material over the specified distance. In this case, the distance from supplier ‘X’ to factory ‘Y’ is 150km. First, convert the weight from kg to ton (divide by 1000). Thus, the weight of the material = 1 kg / 1000 = 0.001 ton. Multiply this by the distance. This gives 0.001 * 150 = 0.15 tkm. See the following section on how to calculate ton-kilometers.
3. Add a subitem under the new transport object: Incorporate the calculated tkm value as a subitem under the transport object (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Adding a subitem to a transport object for scaling transport in Mobius.
4. Add a dataset: Attach a transport dataset to add impact to the object. See the following section for tips on finding the right transport dataset in ecoinvent.
5. Add the transport object to your product: Go to the Product inventory of the object you want to add the transport object to (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Adding the scalable transport object to a product in Mobius.
In the end, Mobius automatically scales the tkm to the right value - so you don’t have to calculate the tkm value yourself!
Video tutorial
Watch Emma explain these concepts in our tutorial:
Next steps
Mastering the incorporation and efficient modeling of transportation in Mobius is crucial for precise LCAs. By linking transport data to specific objects and employing scalable transport modeling, transportation impacts are accurately represented in your LCA models. Utilize the detailed steps and video tutorials provided to enhance your modeling skills. For additional support, explore our help center or contact our support team. Happy modeling!