Getting Started

Learn how to install Activity Browser...

Starting Activity Browser

First activate the environment where the activity browser is installed:

conda activate ab

Then simply run activity-browser and the application will open.

Understanding Activity Browser terms

Activity Browser uses Brightway for its data management and calculations. Brightway has its own 'accent' of LCA terms, you can compare LCA terms from Brightway, ISO 14044 (2006) and others in the Brightway Glossary.

Organization of data in Brightway and Activity Browser

Data in Brightway is organized into projects

Projects contain databases, impact categories, calculation setups and more
- Databases contain activities (biosphere and technosphere)
  - Activities are the building blocks of your LCA model
Impact categories are used to score your LCA models against
Calculation setups are the combinations of reference flows and impact categories that you can calculate
Projects also contain other data, such as parameters and plugin settings.

brightway organizational structure ^{Image copied from the
Brightway documentation.}

Read more about how data is organized in the Brightway documentation.

User interface

Activity Browser is organized in two panels, which themselves have tabs and a menu bar. The left panel has a Project tab and an Impact Categories tab. The right panel has the Welcome screen, LCA setup tab, Parameters tab and -if used- an LCA Results tab.

The Project tab shows your current project, the databases in that project and the contents of a database if it is open. The Impact Categories tab shows all impact categories that are installed in the current project. The LCA Setup tab allows you to define reference flows, impact categories and scenarios for calculations. The Parameters tab allows you to manage your parameters. The LCA Results tab shows the results of the calculations you do. Finally, the menu bar at the top allows you to manage Activity Browser, Plugins and Project settings.

Setting up a project

Video overview of project setup

^{Note: some content of the video may be outdated. Written content should be more up-to-date.}

Installing a biosphere and impact categories

In the Project tab there is initially a button called Set up your project with default data. Click this button to add the default data. This adds a biosphere database which contains a number of standardized biosphere flows and compatible impact categories.

project setup - choose type

Setting up with Biosphere3 data

You can choose a biosphere version, which will install a biosphere database and compatible impact categories.

Important

In case you want to install ecoinvent later, choosing a biosphere version will make your project compatible with only the version of biosphere you install. e.g. installing biosphere 3.6 will make your project only compatible with ecoinvent 3.6 databases.

Setting the biosphere version is permanent for a project, you cannot change this version later.

If you do not plan on using ecoinvent in this project, don't worry about this and choose the highest version.

project setup - choose biosphere version

Setting up with ecoinvent data

If you have a valid ecoinvent license and login information, you can immediately set up ecoinvent in your project with all relevant and compatible data. You can then choose the database version and system model.

project setup - ecoinvent login project setup - ecoinvent version and system model

LCI databases

After adding the default data, you can create or import a database with the New and Import Database buttons.

project tab until databases

New databases

With New you can create a completely empty database with any given name and enter your own activity data.

Importing databases

Clicking 'Import' will open a new dialog that will allow you to select how you want to import data into brightway (and by extension, the Activity Browser). There are two main options: 'remote data' and 'local data':

Remote database import

We currently support 2 remote databases, Ecoinvent and Forwast: