HiQLCD comes to improve the availability of LCA datasets for China. Their journey started in 2010 with datasets for the steel industry, and has grown over time to now include multiple product categories such as electricity, heat, coal, oil and gas, steel, non-ferrous metals, metal alloys, chemicals, building materials, photovoltaics, lithium batteries, electronic appliances, waste treatment, transportation, etc.
The database is made up of system processes in ILCD format. Some highlights are:
Electricity
400 datasets covering most technologies and very regional mixes.
Steel
Covering the entire process for Chinese steel production, from raw material acquisition, manufacturing, product sales and recycling.
Coal
Over 500 datasets for specific Chinese coal mining (including different technologies), processing, transportation and sales.
Iron Ore
Over 160 datasets on China’s iron ore industry including mining, transportation, imports and exports.
Waste Treatment
Over 2,000 datasets related to waste management, covering Solid Waste Management (SWM) and Wastewater Treatment (WWT). This includes regional calculation models.
Oil and Gas
Over 500 datasets covering all aspects from oil and gas extraction to refining as well as information about related products. The datasets of “Crude Oil Market, China” and “Natural Gas，high pressure Market, China” combine international trade reality to accurately present the situation of China’s oil and gas consumption.
Quality and reliability are addressed with four principles: regional representativeness, consistency with rules for data information management, high quality through data quality checks and clear descriptions (even though that the datasets themselves are system processes).
You can read the full documentation by the database provider here: /wp-content/uploads/2025/01/HiQLCD-1.1-Introduction.pdf
Acquire the database through our market place for data, openLCA Nexus: https://nexus.openlca.org/database/HiQLCD