The activity browser is an open source software for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) that builds on top of the Brightway2 LCA framework.
- Fast LCA calculations for multiple reference flows and impact categories using Brightway2 under the hood
- The AB can be used as a productivity tool for brightway: you can model in brightway (python) and see the results in the AB or the other way around - whatever is most convenient for you
- Advanced LCA modeling:
- parametrization
- advanced foreground and background scenario modeling (e.g. possibility to work with scenarios from Integrated Assessment Models)
- define and directly visualize the uncertainties of your input data (including Pedigree Matrix)
- Advanced analysis of LCA results:
- Contribution analyses (including aggregation by product name, region or other attributes)
- Sankey Diagrams
- Monte Carlo Analysis (building upon the fast brightway engine)
- Global Sensitivity Analysis
- Other features
- interactively explore supply chains using the graph explorer
Please have a look at our scientific paper on the Activity Browser and cite it in your work if it has been useful to you: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.simpa.2019.100012
Watch our videos on youtube to learn how to install and use the Activity Browser.
You can install and start the activity-browser like this:
conda create -n ab -c conda-forge activity-browser
conda activate ab
activity-browserWe recommend that you use conda to manage your python installation. You can install Anaconda or the more compact miniconda (Python 3 of course) for your operating system. Installation instructions for miniconda can be found here. See also the conda user guide or the Conda cheat sheet.
Skip this step if you already have a working installation of anaconda or miniconda, but make sure to keep your conda installation up-to-date: conda update conda.
The activity-browser has many dependencies that are managed by the conda-forge channel. Open a cmd-window or terminal (in Windows you may have to use the Anaconda prompt) and type the following:
conda config --prepend channels conda-forgeAfter prepending the Conda-Forge channel the following line should be executed within the command prompt/terminal to install the Activity-Browser and it's dependencies.
conda create -n ab activity-browserThis will install the Activity-Browser with the latest version of the Brightway2 libraries (currently excluding Brightway2.5 libraries).
For a new installation from the conda-forge repository the same initial steps need to be made: Prepending the Conda-Forge repository in the channels, and installing the Activity-Browser and dependencies. After the successful installation, however, two further commands need to be executed before running the Activity-Browser: 1) Remove the latest version of the Brightway2 Input-Output library, 2) Install an older version of the Brightway2 Input-Output library.
conda remove --force bw2io
conda install bw2io=0.8.7At this point the activity-browser and all of its dependencies will be installed in a new conda environment called ab. You can change the environment name ab to whatever suits you. (Note, Installing for the first time will take a few minutes).
It is recommended that you have a separate conda environment for the activity browser as explained above, but you can also install the activity browser in your root, brightway2 or other existing conda environment if you prefer. Having separate environments for different projects generally reduces unwanted side-effects and incompatibilities between packages. You can still access the same brightway-projects even if you work with different conda environments.
If you want to run the Activity-Browser with older versions of Ecoinvent (<3.9) and the Biosphere3 database is already installed, then there will be exchanges in the biosphere3 database that are not compatible with the desired Ecoinvent versions. These Biosphere3 databases will then need to be removed and reinstalled (after changing the bw2io package version) before trying to load the Ecoinvent and other dependent databases back into the Activity-Browser.
You may want to update the activity browser to receive new features & bugfixes:
conda activate ab
conda update activity-browserThis will update the activity-browser and all of its dependencies in the conda environment called ab.
3.8 |
|---|
You should re-install if you have an older installation of the activity browser which doesn't use python >= 3.8 (you can check with conda list or python --version in your conda environment). You can remove your existing environment with conda remove -n ab --all or choose a new environment name (instead of ab). Re-installing will not affect your activity-browser/brightway projects. |
Watch our videos on youtube on how to install and use the Activity Browser and/or read below and in our Wiki.
First activate the environment where the activity browser is installed:
conda activate abThen simply run activity-browser and the application will open.
- In the
inventory-tab there is a button called "Add default data (biosphere flows and impact categories)". Click this button to add the default data. This is equivalent tobrightway2.bw2setup()in python. - After adding the default data, you can import a database with the "Import Database"-Button. Follow the instructions of the database import wizard. There are currently three types of imports possible:
- Directly from the ecoinvent homepage (ecoinvent login credentials required)
- From a 7zip archive
- From a directory with ecospold2 files (same as in brightway2)
Your contribution counts! The AB is a community project.
If you have ideas for improvements to the code or documentation or want to propose new features, please take a look at our contributing guidelines and open issues and/or pull-requests.
If you experience problems or are suffering from a specific bug, please raise an issue here on github.
- Bernhard Steubing ([email protected])
- Matthijs Vos ([email protected])
- Adrian Haas ([email protected])
- Chris Mutel ([email protected])
- Daniel de Koning ([email protected])
The development of the Activity Browser was co-financed by the following projects:
- Life Cycle Management of wood in Switzerland (Swiss National Science Foundation, NRP 66 Resource Wood project number 136623)
- MIN-TEA (Materials Innovative Technologies Assessment; EIT Raw Materials project number 18231)
- 2017-2020: Bernhard Steubing and Daniel de Koning (Leiden University), Adrian Haas (ETH Zurich)
- 2016: Chris Mutel and Paul Scherrer Institut
- 2015: Bernhard Steubing and ETH Zurich
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
Activity Browser:
- Activity Browser: overview paper https://doi.org/10.1016/j.simpa.2019.100012
- Global Sensitiviy Analysis:
- paper describing GSA as implemented in the AB: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jiec.13194
- additional description on our Wiki: https://github.com/LCA-ActivityBrowser/activity-browser/wiki/Global-Sensitivity-Analysis
- Modular LCA:
- paper on modular LCA using the Activity Browser: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-015-1015-3
- documentation modular LCA: http://activity-browser.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html
- re-implementation of modular LCA into the AB is ongoing, see here: https://github.com/marc-vdm/activity-browser/tree/mLCA
Brightway2: