geopolrisk-py : A Python-Based Library to Operationalize the Geopolitical Supply Risk Method for use in Life Cycle Assessment and Comparative Risk Assessment

The Geopolitical Supply Risk (GeoPolRisk) method estimates the likelihood that supplies of a given raw material may be disrupted due to political instability in producing countries and high concentration of global production. It is used in life cycle assessment (LCA) and in comparative risk assessments to complement environmental indicators with a supply-risk perspective. In practice, applying the method can be technically demanding, as it requires combining trade data, production statistics, governance indicators, and price information to compute supply risk scores and characterization factors. The geopolrisk-py library operationalizes the GeoPolRisk method by automating these calculations in a transparent and reproducible manner. It takes structured inputs such as raw material names, countries or economic units, and reference years, and produces supply risk scores and characterization factors (CF)s for LCA. The library is intended for life cycle assessment practitioners, materials scientists, and risk analysts in industry and the public sector, and supports applications ranging from national and regional assessments to company specific supply risk analyses. Future developments include the integration of uncertainty analysis and tighter coupling with the Brightway 2.5 framework to further enhance functionality and usability.