USLCI (the U.S. Life Cycle Inventory) is the main U.S.-specific database of life cycle data. It's maintained by the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) and updated roughly every three months, making it one of the most widely used and recognized sources of U.S. environmental data.
Coverage
Genre | Cycles | Examples
|
Material products | 610 | Zinc sheet, Rice at field, Epoxy, Polyethylene terephthalate |
Transport | 525 | Transport by freight aircraft, diesel rail, natural gas pipelinechr |
Energy | 195 | Grid electricity, Wood residue combustion |
Waste management | 67 | Combustion of yard trimmings, wastewater treatment, municipal solid waste landfilling of mixed plastics |
Processing | 58 | Corn wet milling, Compression molding, Automotive painting |
Usage (equipment operation) | 53 | Excavators, Cranes, Pavers (diesel powered) |
Infrastructure | 6 | Grow barn construction, Steam methane reforming plant |
USLCI in Earthster
The original USLCI data requires customization and linking decisions before you can model with it: roughly 1 in every 5 process inputs (20%) has no data behind it. In Earthster, that gap is resolved down to 1 in every 20 (5%) by using USEEIO, CORRIM, US Electricity Baseline, and BAFU as background databases — so you open a cycle and start modeling, not wiring up links.
USLCI in Earthster also comes prefilled with properties (useful for EPD reporting) and FLAG tags (for your FLAG indicator needs).
Sibling databases
USLCI is part of a bigger family: the Federal LCA Commons. In Earthster you'll also find its sibling databases — CORRIM (wood and forest products) and US Electricity Baseline (U.S. grid electricity) — built the same way and cross-linked with USLCI.
Version improvements
Release 1.2026-09 (latest version)
BAFU linking: inputs that previously had no data behind them now resolve to BAFU as background data — closing most of the remaining gaps in USLCI's own coverage.
New data: deeper coverage of freight transport (including electricity-powered trucking for the first time), finer combustion emission factors, and new municipal water infrastructure datasets.
Properties: cycles measured in kilograms now come prefilled with Dry Mass and Wet Mass properties.
Release 1.2024-10.0
USLCI first became available as a database in Earthster.
More information
For more information about the USLCI database, such as naming conventions, check out FLCAC's Data submission handbook and the FLCAC's Metadata Guidance.