Data for Sustainability

To support Sustainability analysis in Granta MI, Ansys provides Sustainability data for materials, processes, parts, manufacturing locations, and modes of transport in the Restricted Substances and Sustainability database. Your organization may also have added its own in-house data records with Sustainability data.

The database map below shows the record types that are relevant for Sustainability analysis, and the data tables that they are stored in.

Note: Records provided by Ansys can be identified in the database by the data attribute Is Ansys record? = 'Yes'
The Sustainability data provided by Ansys supports the Material Production, Product Manufacturing, and Transport phases of the cradle-to-gate analysis. For more information about the Sustainability data and its boundaries, see the Restricted Substances and Sustainability database home page in MI Viewer. To see information about each attribute, view a record datasheet in MI Viewer and click the attribute name.
Material Production

For generic materials, provided by Ansys, in the MaterialUniverse table, values for the Embodied energy and Climate change (CO2-eq) impacts have been estimated based on the material's composition, and the inputs (for example, raw materials extraction, energy, and average transports) and outputs (for example, waste) required for its production, considering global production of the material. Values are provided for virgin grade (with 0% recycled content) and typical grade.

For materials where end of life recycling has become integrated into the supply chain (such as metals and glasses), the values estimated for typical grade take into account the level of recycled material incorporated back into the supply chain as standard practice.

The environmental impact of material production includes all steps used to produce the material, but excludes any surface treatments, heat treatments, or finishing processes that have been applied. For example, Carbon steel, AISI 1144, annealed, includes the impact of steel production to ingot/billet form, but does not include the impact of annealing.

Lastly, included in the material production is the impact of transportation from material production to the component manufacturing facility. The distance considered is an average global value.

Generic parts and products

Ansys provides a number of generic components and parts in the Products and Parts table. For Standard Parts, values for Embodied energy and Climate change (CO2-eq) (per 1kg of the part) have been estimated based on the inputs (for example, materials, energy, and average transports) and outputs (for example, waste) required for production of the part, considering its global production.

In the Sustainability analysis and report, the environmental impacts of Standard Parts are included in the 'Material production' phase of the analysis.

Note: The boundaries of Standard Parts include an average global transportation impact. If you add your own manufacturing Transport to a Standard Part, it will be calculated in the 'Transport' phase of the analysis and the transport impact of the part will be counted twice. For more information, see Assigning Parts.

For parts that are not Standard Parts (that is, do not have Embodied energy and Climate change (CO2-eq) indicator values in the database), environmental impacts are calculated based on the materials and processes assigned to the parts, and included in the 'Material production' and 'Manufacturing' phases respectively.

Product Manufacturing

For generic processes, provided by Ansys, included in the ProcessUniverse table, the Sustainability analysis can calculate material-dependent values for Embodied energy and Climate change (CO2-eq) that take into account the properties of the material the process is applied to.

All calculations for processes take into account the manufacturing location, where this has been specified in the BoM from the Locations table of the database.

In general, the boundaries for calculating environmental impacts of generic processes include the amount of energy needed in the process (heat and electricity), the impacts of energy generation and transmission for the specified location, and the impacts of producing other auxiliaries used in the manufacturing process.
Note: The boundaries of some processes (such as adhesives and painting) are different. Further information is available in the datasheet for each Process record.
Transport
The Transport table includes modes of transport, for which the embodied energy and climate change (CO2-eq) are estimated in tonnes per kilometer. The boundaries include the production, maintenance, and operation of transportation vehicles, the necessary infrastructure, and the end-of-life treatment.