impacts

Computes life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) scores by multiplying the inventory against a loaded characterization method. Returns scores per impact category, plus the top contributing flows.

Historically this command was named lcia; it is now impacts across all user-facing surfaces (MCP get_impacts, HTTP /impacts, CLI impacts, pyvolca get_impacts). The internal Haskell/Python type names still use the LCIA acronym since it’s the domain term of art.

Usage

volca --config volca.toml --db <DB> impacts <PROCESS_ID> --method <METHOD_UUID>

Command reference

{impactsHelp}

Examples

# Compute scores
volca --config volca.toml --db ecoinvent impacts <UUID> --method <METHOD_UUID>

# Export to CSV
volca --config volca.toml --db ecoinvent impacts <UUID> --method <METHOD_UUID> \
  --csv results.csv

# Export to XML (ILCD format)
volca --config volca.toml --db ecoinvent impacts <UUID> --method <METHOD_UUID> \
  --output result.xml

# JSON for scripting
volca --config volca.toml --db ecoinvent impacts <UUID> --method <METHOD_UUID> \
  --format json

Finding a method UUID

# List all loaded methods with UUIDs
volca --config volca.toml methods

Understanding the output

Each impact category shows:

• Category name (e.g. “Climate change”, “Acidification”)
• Score with unit
• Top contributing flows (which elementary flows drive the score)

Low scores don’t always mean low impact — check the mapping coverage (flow-mapping command) to understand how many characterization factors were matched.