ecoinvent

Name

ecoinvent

Legal name

ecoinvent Association

Website

https://ecoinvent.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2001

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Life Cycle Inventory Database

NAICS

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (51821)

SIC

Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731)

akta.pro primary industry

Emissions Factors, LCA & Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) Platforms (EUABAEAD)

akta.pro secondary industries

Climate & Emissions Data Management (Data Lake, Integration, APIs) (EUABAEAC), Supply Chain (Scope 3) Emissions & Supplier Engagement Platforms (EUABAEAE), Product Sustainability & LCA/EPD (Eco-design, PCF) (EUAHAJAF)

Keywords

• Life cycle inventory
• Environmental database
• Sustainability data
• Carbon footprint data
• Life cycle assessment

Headquarters

HQ city

Zürich

HQ country

Switzerland

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Database Licenses: Access to the ecoinvent database requires a license. The company offers multiple license tiers including Single-User, Developer, Educational, and Enterprise licenses to suit varying customer needs from individuals to commercial enterprises.
2. API Access: New ecoinvent API provides programmatic access to the life cycle inventory database, enabling integration into applications and workflows.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

ecoinvent provides the world's leading Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) database containing over 26,000 peer-reviewed datasets across fuels, electricity, chemicals and plastics, waste, metals, textiles, forestry and wood, agriculture, transport, pulp and paper, and batteries. The database is delivered through the ecoQuery web platform, the ecoinvent API for programmatic access, and supporting tools such as a Knowledge Base and Data Glossary, enabling life cycle assessments, carbon footprint determination, environmental product declarations, and supply chain sustainability decisions.

Product overview

ecoinvent offers a unified product portfolio centered on its flagship life cycle inventory database, which contains over 26,000 peer-reviewed environmental datasets. The core offerings include the ecoinvent Database accessed through the ecoQuery web platform or programmatic API, supported by user resources like the Knowledge Base and Data Glossary. Additional tools include the License Calculator for license selection and the ecoinvent Accounts platform for user management. The ecoinvent UI design system provides consistent visual standards across all products.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• ecoinvent Database The world's most transparent life cycle inventory database with over 26,000 peer-reviewed datasets supporting environmental reporting and sustainable decision-making for companies, researchers, and policymakers.
• ecoQuery Platform Web-based data-access platform for searching and accessing the ecoinvent database, featuring semantic search, sector browsing, search by product name, activity name, or CAS number, and impact scores display.
• ecoinvent API Application programming interface enabling developers to integrate life cycle inventory data into external applications programmatically without manually downloading files or managing local data.
• ecoinvent Data Glossary Reference resource for all metadata used within ecoinvent inventory datasets, including classifications, compartments, geography, activity names, macro economic scenarios, parameters, and system models, available as both web browser and programmatic access.
• ecoinvent Accounts User account management platform for accessing ecoinvent services, database access, and license management.

Quantifiable outcome

• 26,000+ peer-reviewed datasets for comprehensive environmental reporting and sustainable decision-making
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers1 record

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability2 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• NatcapcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 3 March 2026Strategic partnership to strengthen nature impact assessments. ecoinvent provides high-quality Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) data to strengthen Natcap's nature intelligence platform. The integration enhances Natcap's ability to model impact intensity and magnitude scores across commodities and supply chains with greater precision. The partnership addresses the IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment finding that access to reliable data remains one of the biggest barriers stopping businesses from acting to protect nature.
• ORIENTING ConsortiumcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 November 2020ORIENTING is a research project consisting of seventeen companies and organizations from around Europe, including ecoinvent. The consortium's main purpose is to integrate a life cycle approach that includes analyzing environmental, social, and economic impacts. The 3.5-year project developed an operational methodology for product Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA). ecoinvent led the task of creating an ontology (ORIONT) to facilitate interoperability between information resources, databases, and simulation software.
• openLCAcoreTechnology or IntegrationopenLCA is an LCA software tool and ecoinvent partner. openLCA hosts annual conferences (openLCA.conf) where ecoinvent participates. Chief Revenue Officer Ondrej Szabo attends openLCA events to connect with the LCA community.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• openLCA: Open-source Life Cycle Assessment software that integrates directly with the ecoinvent database. It is both a close technology partner (co-hosting openLCA.conf) and a substitute, since practitioners can use openLCA with free/cheaper datasets to bypass ecoinvent licenses.
• Sphera (formerly thinkstep / GaBi): Commercial provider of LCA software and proprietary databases (including GaBi databases) that compete head-to-head with ecoinvent for enterprise LCA work, EPD generation, and product sustainability assessments across the same industrial sectors.
• SimaPro (PRé Sustainability): Long-established LCA software platform with its own ecoinvent-compatible database offering, serving the same LCA practitioner, academic, and corporate sustainability buyer segments globally.

Emerging players

• EXIOBASE: Multi-regional environmentally extended supply-use table (EE-SUT) database providing input-output LCA data at lower granularity but free of charge — a partial substitute for ecoinvent's process-based datasets, particularly for macro-scale Scope 3 assessments.
• CarbonChain: Supply chain emissions platform focused on commodity-level Scope 3 carbon accounting, overlapping with ecoinvent's supply chain management use case for industrial buyers in metals, energy, and agriculture.
• ICE Database (Circular Ecology): Free Inventory of Carbon and Energy (ICE) database providing emission factors for materials — a low-cost alternative used by practitioners for quick carbon footprint estimates, especially in construction and materials sectors that overlap ecoinvent coverage.

Broad incumbents

• Watershed: Enterprise carbon accounting platform that ingests ecoinvent datasets for product-level footprints but competes as a full-stack sustainability suite (measurement, reporting, reduction) that may displace direct ecoinvent enterprise licenses at large customers.
• Persefoni: Climate management and accounting platform serving enterprise sustainability teams, using third-party emission factor libraries (including LCI datasets) to deliver Scope 1–3 reporting — an indirect competitor for the corporate carbon footprinting use case.

Others

• Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP): Global disclosure framework that drives enterprise demand for credible LCA data (including ecoinvent's) and shapes the regulatory direction CDP-aligned companies follow — not a direct competitor but a key ecosystem driver and adjacent platform.
• Quantis: Sustainability consulting firm that both uses ecoinvent's database in client LCA projects and competes with it indirectly by providing bespoke environmental footprinting services — an adjacent ecosystem participant rather than a direct data competitor.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/@ecoinventassociation
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/867392
• Xx.com/ecoinventcentre

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles12 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about ecoinvent