The TRACI 2.1 impact categories are available for users with a full Ecoinvent license.
Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and other environmental Impacts (TRACI)
TRACI 2.1 (the Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and other environmental Impacts) is an environmental impact assessment method developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
It provides characterization factors for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA), industrial ecology, and sustainability metrics. Characterization factors quantify the potential impacts that inputs and releases have on specific impact categories in common equivalence units. Impact categories include:
TRACI 2.1 impact categories
List of the TRACI 2.1 impact categories and corresponding units.
Impact category | Unit |
Acidification | kg SO2 eq |
Eutrophication | kg N eq |
Freshwater ecotoxicity | CTUeco |
Global warming | kg CO2 eq |
Human health - cancer | CTUcancer |
Human health - non-cancer | CTUnoncancer |
Human health - particulate matter | PM 2.5 eq |
Ozone depletion | kg CFC-11 eq |
Smog formation | kg O3 eq |
Viewing the TRACI 2.1 impact categories
Follow these instructions to learn how to view other impact categories.
vs Ecoinvent benchmarks
TL;DR: with the new benchmarks, earthster impacts match ecoinvent's except in the toxicity categories (Freshwater ecotoxicity, Human health - cancer, and Human health - non-cancer), where ecoinvent impacts are one order of magnitude higher than earthster's due to a different methodology, where emissions to underground water are not taken into consideration in FEDEFL's TRACI2.1, but these have impacts in ecoinvent.
Impact category | Avg. difference | reason |
Acidification | 0.2 |
|
Eutrophication | 0.2 |
|
Global warming | 0.2 |
|
Human health - particulate matter | 0.2 |
|
Ozone depletion | 0.2 |
|
Smog formation | 0.2 |
|
Human health - non-cancer | 53.8 | Earthster follows the FEDEFL TRACI2.1 methodology, which does not include impacts to subterranean water, which leads to impacts in these categories that are orders of magnitude lower than those reported on Ecoinvent. We have reached out to the FEDEFL team to |
Freshwater ecotoxicity | 82.2 |
|
Human health - cancer | 90.5 |
|
Ecoinvent benchmarks on Human health and Freshwater ecotoxicity are one order of magnitude higher impacts than on Earthster. That's mostly because the TRACI 2.1 method from FEDEFL attributes no impacts to emission/water/ground/subterranean for any of the flows. We
Log of changes
2025-11-9
Up to this point, Earthster followed the LCA Commons interpretation of the TRACI 2.1 method, which does not include characterization factors for emissions to subterranean water. TRACI does not specify how these emissions should be treated, and groundwater pathways are generally less well studied than surface water.
Because of this methodological gap, results for toxicity categories in Earthster were typically order-of-magnitude lower than in other systems (e.g. ecoinvent) that apply impact factors to subterranean emissions.
To improve consistency and ensure a more complete representation of groundwater emissions, Earthster now extends TRACI to include subterranean water contexts. This brings TRACI in line with how other impact methods, such as ReCiPe and EF, treat similar emissions.
2024-11-29
Global warming:
added characterization factors (CFs) for
Carbon dioxide, land usebased onCarbon dioxide,added -1 CF for
Carbon dioxide emission/ground(and subcontexts, e.g.emission/ground/human-dominated/urban, etc.)added CFs to
Methane, biogenicandMethane, land use(based onMethane)
Human health - particulate matter: added CFs to
Carbon monoxide, biogenicandCarbon monoxide, land use(based onCarbon monoxide)Smog formation:
added CFs to
Carbon monoxide, land useandCarbon monoxide, biogenic(same asCarbon monoxide)added CFs to
Methane, land useandMethane, biogenic(same asMethane)
2023-07-25
TRACI2.1 becomes available