Bw_timex, an open-source Python tool for advanced Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)  co-created in the ForestPaths project, was presented at the annual Brightcon event that took place in Hamburg, Germany between the 23rd and 27th of September. The conference is a forum for experts involved with the open-source framework for Brightway. One of the conference’s unique features is that all presentations are interactive and open-source, allowing for an exchange of ideas along the entire development chain, from programmers to end users.

Timo Diepers of RWTH Aachen University gave a detailed presentation on bw_timex, explaining why it is relevant to account for temporal changes in the supply chains in LCA and how to use the new software bw_timex for time-explicit LCA. Time-explicit LCA harmonises the time dimension in LCA, accounting for the actual state of technology and emissions at the time when a process in the supply chain is occurring. This leads to increased accuracy of the results of environmental impact assessments. 

Bw_timex has also been featured in other recent outreach events. The instrument was first unveiled at the SETAC Europe’s annual meeting back in June 2024 by ForestPaths project partner Amelie Müller of the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO). She also had the chance to present the related concept of dynamic characterisation in LCA at the prospective LCA Network’s webinar titled “Prospective LCA Workshop on Prospective Characterization Factors”. Here, she showcased to 80 participants how the impacts of climate change depend on the timing of emissions and how users can easily apply time-dependent impact assessment methods with the proposed Brightway package dynamic characterisation. Time-explicit LCAs with bw_timex can also make use of these time-dependent impact assessment methods for a fully coherent accounting of time.

You can read more about ForestPaths’ development of open-source LCA tools here.