Patent ID: 8078599

Claim:
A system for evaluating environmental impact associated with an activity, the activity comprising production of a unit of a product from an item comprising virgin material and recycled material, the system comprising: a controller, a plurality of data storages associated with the controller, the plurality of data storages comprising: a first data storage as an inventory database configured to store a first data type associated with the item, the first data type comprising life cycle inventory data associated with the item, a second data storage as an additional information database configured to store a second data type associated with the item, the second data type comprising grade information and recycle ratio information associated with the item, and a third data storage as a corrected inventory database configured to store a third data type associated with the item, the third data type comprising modified life cycle inventory data associated with the item, the controller being configured to compute a gross amount of virgin material for producing the unit by referring to the first data type, multiply the gross amount of virgin material by an amount of recycled material determined based on the recycle ratio information associated with the item, compute a true amount of virgin material for producing the unit by multiplying the gross amount of virgin material with grade information associated with the item, and store the true amount of virgin material in the third data storage as the third data type, wherein the controller comprises a data evaluator, a correcting unit, a data storing unit, an item inputting unit and an impact evaluation unit and wherein the data evaluator is configured to retrieve the first data type from the first data storage, the correcting unit is configured to multiply the first data type into the third data type by applying the second data type, the data storing unit is configured to store the third data type in the third data storage, and wherein the item inputting unit receives an item designator and the third data type corresponding to the item designator, and the impact evaluation unit retrieves impact-coefficient data for the item designator from a fourth data storage, and multiplies the third data type with the impact-coefficient data.