New Background Database for 2026 is now online!
With BAFU:2026, the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) provides an updated, high-quality and freely available life cycle inventory (LCI) database tailored to Swiss requirements. ESU-services uses the new BAFU:2026 version 1 and supports organisations in integrating the new data into their life cycle assessment work.
🔍 What’s inside BAFU:2026?
- • Approximately 11,947 life cycle inventory datasets: Specifically, the database covers energy, construction, industry, transport, agriculture, chemicals, waste management and other sectors.
- • Precalculated results for IPCC 2021, the Ecological Scarcity Method 2021 (UBP 2021) and Environmental Footprint 3.1.
- • Transparent documentation and an accompanying dataset change log.
🆕 What’s new in BAFU:2026?
The first version of BAFU:2026 introduces several important improvements:
- New and updated construction datasets:
Additionally, several updates have been completed for construction-related sectors, including construction machinery and infrastructure, heat pumps, cement and reinforcing steel. - Corrections based on user feedback
In particular, datasets have been corrected or refined to address inconsistencies identified by the LCA community. - New dataset change log
The documentation package includes a change log showing which datasets were created, updated, corrected or renamed between database versions.
🌍 Why it matters
The database provides a transparent and consistent foundation for environmental legislation, public procurement, research and industrial decision-making. Therefore, it supports the assessment of environmental impacts throughout product life cycles and strengthens transparency in life cycle assessment.
The improvements introduced with BAFU:2026 are particularly relevant for the construction sector. Here, harmonised and publicly accessible environmental data are becoming increasingly important for assessing greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts.
📥 Discover, Download and contribute
ESU-services contributed several hundreds of datasets
ESU-services is proud to contribute to the development of a public LCI database. These contributions include, for example, updated life cycle inventories for fossil fuels and plastics. We use BAFU:20XY for our offers on the ESU food database, data-on-demand and emission factors.
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