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The The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and its partners created the U.S. Life Cycle Inventory (USLCI) Database to help life cycle assessment practitioners answer questions about environmental impact.

The USLCI database provides individual gate-to-gate, cradle-to-gate, and cradle-to-grave accounting of the energy and material flows into and out of the environment that are associated with producing a material, component, or assembly in the U.S.

The U.S. Life Cycle Inventory (USLCI) Database is a publicly available database that allows users to objectively review and compare analysis results that are based on similar data collection and analysis methods.

Finding consistent and transparent life cycle inventory data for life cycle assessments is difficult. NREL works with life cycle assessment experts to develop a consistent and transparent life cycle inventory data for life cycle assessment, by providing a central source of critically reviewed life cycle inventory data through its USLCI Database Project. NREL's USLCI management team worked closely with government stakeholders, and industry partners to develop the database.

The USLCI Database Project was initiated on May 1, 2001, and gained national prominence at a meeting of interests hosted by the Ford Motor Company. Funding agencies and representatives of industrial, academic, and consulting communities voiced strong support for the project. As a result, an advisory group with 45 representatives from manufacturing, government, and non-government organizations, as well as life cycle assessment experts, worked together to create the U.S. LCI Database Project Development