People
In the end people are the driving force of any LCA database. They are needed both for providing the necessary IT infrastructure, as well as for developing and reviewing datasets and managing the database as a whole. In general, countries looking to develop national LCA databases should not underestimate the skills and efforts required. At the same time, many existing databases began with very few, and often no, full-time personnel. Working collaboratively, with several organizations providing resources and capacities in-kind at a moderate level, can be successful. In this way, efforts can be distributed and existing skillsets can be combined effectively. Generally, full-time personnel should only be added once demand and funding are clear and likely to remain in the long term.
The number of people involved in the provision of data to an LCA database depends on its goal and scope. Data collection, inventory generation and dataset submissions can be performed internally by the National Database Working Group (NDWG), through external data providers (e.g. LCA researchers or commercial service providers, industries or industry associations, etc.) or in a combination thereof. In terms of dataset development, it might also be possible to capitalize on human resources not directly related to the database, e.g. academic or research and development (R&D) projects or national statistics, generating data that can be transformed into compatible datasets with reasonable effort.
