Create A4 (Transportation Emissions) Engine Method

[shivanierambaran]

Add engine method for evaluating transportation impacts (A4) for materials

Transportation impact per unit weight of material (per leg of travel) = transport_distance * transport_emissions_factor
Default values from available datasets can be used early in design or when project data is unavailable.

Steps may include:

• Create Mode of Transport enum
• Create dataset with transport_emissions_factor per Mode of Transport (US Source: EPA)
• Create/ define Material Category (coordinate definition with other life cycle phases to incorporate considerations for default service life, construction waste factors, disposal modes, etc)
• Create dataset with default Mode of Transport and transport_distance per Material Category
• Add Material Category to Material Mapping workflow
• Define method that results in A4 emissions per unit weight of material (example sketch below)

[kayleighhoude]

Potential method for including MaterialCategory and "Aspirational OriginSource" in the Material Template to allow for easier adoption of the method above - diagram created during working session between @shivanierambaran and @kayleighhoude on June 10 2024

[shivanierambaran]

@desaiwangBH to support in creation of transport scenario datasets

[shivanierambaran]

@IsakNaslundBh @kayleighhoude
Agreed-upon EPD name: Calculated Material Life Cycle Environmental Impact Factors
Definition: Resultant calculated (e.g. Climate Change Total, Acidification) environmental impact emissions factors for all life cycle stages. This differs from the Environmental Product Declaration object as impacts reflected do not need to come from an explicit Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) document. Separate methods can be used to fill in gaps where EPD factors do not exist, such as for calculating transportation impacts (ex: A4 - Transport Emissions Factor by Distance), or in areas where EPD factors should be overridden.

Also change Environmental Impact object (ex: ClimateChangeTotalMetric, AcidificationMetric etc) definitions (only first sentence) ~ "Creates a ClimateChangeTotalMetric" to be applied as part of an EnvironmentalProductDeclaration or a CalculatedMaterialLifeCycleEnvironmentalImpactFactors object.

Datasets (3) are ready to be created: Reference BHoM A4 Factors Dataset tab

Workflow Diagram: