TotalView characterises every lifecycle emission with the ReCiPe 2016
(Hierarchist) method — the international consensus successor to ReCiPe 2008,
maintained by RIVM, Radboud University, Norwegian University of Science and
Technology, and PRé Sustainability. Hierarchist is the default perspective: a
100-year time horizon for climate impacts and the consensus assumption set for
contested factors, balancing the optimistic (Individualist) and precautionary
(Egalitarian) extremes.
ReCiPe is two layers: ~18 midpoint indicators (problem-oriented —
acidification, eutrophication, particulate matter, …) that aggregate into
3 endpoint damages (Human Health, Ecosystem Quality, Resource Scarcity).
TotalView reports both — totals at the endpoint level for headline reporting,
and the midpoint breakdown so you can see what is driving a result.
Each line is a midpoint category returned in summary_json.Impacts.* under the
field Impact_Category. Categories are grouped by the endpoint they roll up
into.
Alongside Impacts.*, every result also carries an Emissions.* block — the
characterised inventory in tonne / m³ equivalents, before it has been
translated to DALYs / PDFs / USD. This is what an ISO 14044 LCI looks like
post-characterisation: each midpoint indicator expressed in its reference
substance (CO₂-Eq for climate change, PM2.5-Eq for particulate matter, SO₂-Eq
for acidification, etc.), grouped by environmental compartment.
Each row below is a line item returned in
Emissions.Cradle_to_Grave_Analysis.{air|soil|water|resource}[].
The resource compartment is not an emissions release — it tracks net use of
finite stocks (fossil fuels, ores, land, water). The first two are normalised
to reference resources; land and water are reported in their native physical
units rather than tonnes.
Name
Unit
Defines
Energy Resources: Non-Renewable, Fossil
Tonnes oil-Eq
Net fossil-fuel use, normalised to crude oil energy content
Material Resources: Metals/Minerals
Tonnes Cu-Eq
Net metal/mineral use, normalised to copper extraction scarcity
Land Use
annual m² crop-Eq
Land occupation and transformation avoided when fossil extraction backs off
Impacts.Cradle_to_Grave_Analysis.Public_Health[], Biodiversity[], and
Economic[] — characterised damages (DALYs / PDFs / USD), one element per
midpoint from the impact tables.
Emissions.Cradle_to_Grave_Analysis.{air, soil, water, resource}[] —
characterised inventory in tonne/m³ equivalents, one element per line item
from the emissions tables.
The same midpoints appear inside every period of the time-series endpoints
(/impacts/time-series, /impacts/hourly, /impacts/daily).
Endpoint totals are pre-aggregated as
Impacts.Cradle_to_Grave_Analysis.Total.{DALYs,PDFs,USD}.
A single carbon number can hide trade-offs — a battery project may displace gas
combustion (a Public Health win) while drawing on lithium extraction (a Resource
Scarcity cost). Reporting all 18 ReCiPe midpoints means the trade-off is
visible in the same response, not buried in a footnote.
