Results in Ecochain Helix

This page demonstrates all the result features of the Ecochain Helix application.

 The Ecochain Helix application allows you to show your LCA results in various ways. Under 'Results' you'll find a drop-down menu containing a product overview and statistics.
Tutorials
 

The results options available in Ecochain Helix are:

  1. The product overview
  2. The statics overview
  3. Generate reports section


The following video tutorial shows you how the product overview in Ecochain Helix works. 

Product overview


Results | Statistics | Product  

This page answers several questions:

How do I get insights into the environmental impact of my product?
How can I view different impact categories?
How do I get an overview of the full life cycle of my product?

The following video tutorial explains the 'Results | statistics' page on a "Product level" and addresses the questions above. 

How do you benchmark and compare the footprint of products in the results section?

How do you easily search and compare products in the product portfolio? 

 

Results | Generate reports | Environmental Profiles

The following video tutorial explains the 'Results | Generate reports' and shows how to generate an 'Environmental Profile' of your Product's LCA.  

 

 

Below are some written explanations on specific results options that we provide in Ecochain Helix.


Statistics

  1. ECI

  2. Company

  3. Process

  4. Product

Generate reports

Audit projects

Verification documents

 

Product overview

 
  • Publish your products in the Ecochain database
  • Product results

 

Publish your products in the Ecochain database

In case you want to make your products visible for all Ecochain users, you can de-select the 'eye icon' on the left of your product name. In order to do so, go to the 'Results > Product overview' page (see above).

Once your product has been published, the item will be visible and usable for all EcoChain users. They can purchase your product in their accounts, by attaching the environmental impact of your product to the purchasing page of their account. In order for a full explanation of using LCA data in the purchasing tab of your account, visit: 1.3.1. Add materials. Or, if you are already familiar with this page, go to the purchasing tab of the account.

Click on 'add supplier' for a specific material.

When you search for the audited product, 'Beton mengsel 1' in this case, you will see your published product appear in the search screen. In case the auditor attached a verification document, in the 'Verified' column of the search bar it will state 'Yes'. The verification document is now visibly attached to your product, and downloadable for other users.

When you wish to use this publishing link only internally, between two of your company accounts, it is important to unpublish the product again from the database. This is done by going back to product overview and close the 'eye icon'. The link between your accounts will stay, but the product is no longer visible in the database for other EcoChain users. 

Statistics

 
 

The statistics page can show you your results in a graphic way, which can be helpful when explaining results to colleagues or clients. Throughout the statistics results, the impact category can be changed, so its shows you directly the results of other impact results.  

 

Environmental Cost Indicator (ECI)

The environmental impacts that occur along the supply chain vary inherently. Hence these impacts are categorized in impact categories (e.g. climate change, ecotoxicity). In order to arrive at a single indicator, weighing and merging of the scores is necessary. This is done in the form of the Environmental Cost Indicator (MKI in Dutch).

The impact categories are ordered based on characterization factors. Characterization factors are numbers that indicate how much a specific substance (e.g. 1 kg of CO2) contributes to an environmental effect (e.g. climate change). Since more greenhouse gasses contribute to climate change, the mutual relationship between these substances has to be determined. After characterization, an environmental analysis provides a score on various environmental themes such as climate change, acidification, eutrophication, etc. In order to bring down the scores on these themes to one number one can use weighing. Weighing reflects the relative importance of the environmental themes and is based on shadow price method. The shadow price is the highest cost level acceptable for governments (prevention costs) per unit of emission control. 

Company

 

 

Process

 

Product

Here all the inserted products in your account will be shown in a bar chart. The three colors used in this graph are blue for transport, green for materials and orange for proces impact. You can led the graph show you the single product results or the total production result. This last one is especially handy when you want to include the whole production, and not only per product. For example when a product with a high impact is only produced a few times, the total production impact can show you which products to focus on for improvement. Maybe this is a product that has a lower singel impact, but many are produced which results in a high total production impact. The bars can also be sorted by name or by value. 

 

The product results can also be shown in a 'donut graph' as shown below. You can get this graph by clicking on one of the bars in the previous image, that shows your product results. The graph will be displayed below the product results.