Running from 2014 to 2018 and led by the ecoinvent Association, the Life Cycle Inventories (LCI) component of the SRI programme brought together local stakeholders in Brazil, Colombia, India, Peru and South Africa to develop inventory data for core activities across a wide range of important sectors and industries. These efforts, encompassing some two dozen data collection projects, resulted in the creation of more than 1,700 datasets, as well as four LCI modelling tools. These datasets (as unlinked unit processes), selected LCIA results, and tools, as well as supporting documentation, are now available to download for free via a dedicated section on the ecoinvent website.

The datasets from SRI-LCI have also been integrated into the latest version of the ecoinvent database. Version 3.6 introduced more than 2,200 new and 2,500 updated datasets, covering/related to more than 240 new products. With the addition of these datasets, the geographical coverage of the ecoinvent database has greatly increased. Inventories are now available for various activities in such countries as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ghana, India, Peru, and South Africa.

The sectorial coverage of the database has also been expanded, with new or updated data on agricultural crop production, animal husbandry, fishery, and forestry, the manufacture of wood products and other construction materials, chemicals production, electricity generation and distribution, metal extraction, and petroleum refinery operations. Furthermore, other industries like textile production, freight transport, water supply, and waste management were completely restructured, whilst data on tourist accommodation is featured in the database for the first time. New datasets, describing selected worst practices for metal recovery from end-of-life products in developing countries and on formal and informal recycling of plastic scrap from electronic appliances in India, were established in close collaboration with the other SRI components. The modelling tools developed through the SRI project now support easier generation of inventories for activities in waste management, agriculture, and petroleum refining.

The Sustainable Recycling Industries (SRI) programme was funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and jointly implemented by the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research (Empa), the World Resources Forum (WRF), and the ecoinvent Association.