The EPLCA is the EU’s knowledge base that responds to business and policy needs towards sustainable production and consumption. It supports the methodological development of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for the analysis of supply chains and end-of-life waste management.
In this page, we recapitulate the key documents provided by the JRC in support of the Environmental Footprint's transition phase.
The updated list of key documents produced by JRC for the EF Transition phase can be accessed through the links below.
The common methods to measure the life cycle environmental performances for PEF and OEF have been included in the Commission Recommendation 2021/2279 published in December 2021.
Documents at the base of the EU Recommendation:
Latest version of the Annex C for PEF / OEF studies (and PEFCRs/OEFSRs under development) in the EF transition phase, including default application-specific and material-specific values to be used in the application of the Circular Footprint Formula when performing a PEF or OEF study.
Guide for EF compliant datasets with instructions for data developers on dataset types to be used, procedure for updates, disaggregated datasets, meta data, modelling, node structure, etc. available down here (ver. JULY 2020).
In order to reflect the changes in the Environmental Footprint 3.1 reference package, additional guidance documentation has been released for EF 3.1 data developers in the addendum available below.
The Interface Paper Version 2.1 (2020) containing the "Modelling requirements on LCI models under the Environmental Footprint for interoperable data exchange via the eILCD format" is available here
The full Software Developer Kit (SDK) including sample data for the different XML types, schemas, stylesheets, license and other documentation is available here
Complete EF reference package 3.1 (including validation profile and Look@LCI configuration) here
(last update July 2022).
[DO WE NEED ALL THESE OTHER LINKS? SEE PAGE]
An overview of the evolution of the life cycle impact assessment methods from ILCD to the different stages of the Environmental Footprint is available here
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Supporting information for the characterization factors used in the impact assessment for the EF is available here.
25 Aug 2025 | 12 May 2026
