# Brightway Software Framework

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:::{grid-item-card} 🌿 Projects
:link: source/other/ecosystem
:link-type: doc

Contributors have built amazing projects based on Brightway!
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:::{grid-item-card} 👩‍💻 Contribute
:link: source/contributing/contributing
:link-type: doc

Brightway is developed by a community of volunteers. Join us!
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:::{grid-item-card} 📜 Open Source
:link: source/other/credits
:link-type: url

Brightway is free and open source - and it will stay that way!
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## What is Brightway?

Brightway is an open-source software package for [life cycle assessment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_assessment) (LCA) and [environmental impact assessment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_assessment) written in the [Python](https://www.python.org/) programming language. LCA is a method for evaluating the environmental impacts of a product, process, or service. It involves analyzing all of the inputs and outputs of a system, including raw materials, energy use, and waste products, and quantifying the environmental impacts of these inputs and outputs over the entire lifecycle of the system. 

## What can Brightway do?

Brightway is designed to make it easy to work with large datasets and perform LCA calculations quickly and accurately. It thus provides a powerful tool for anyone interested in performing LCA or evaluating the environmental impacts of products and processes. Brightway is not intended to replace software like _SimaPro_ or _OpenLCA_, but instead offers possibilities to break the limits of conventional LCA. Brightway is especially attractive for researchers, especially when used with [Jupyter notebooks](https://jupyter.org/).

```{toctree}
---
hidden:
maxdepth: 1
---
source/introduction/introduction
source/setup/setup
source/api/index
source/gallery/index
source/lca/index
source/contributing/contributing
source/faq/faq
source/changelog/index
source/other/ecosystem
source/other/support
source/other/credits
```