Abstract
Carbon life cycle assessments (C LCA) play a major role in greenhouse gas (GHG)-related forest management analytics for wood products and consist of several steps along a forest to disposal path. Yet, input values for wood product C LCAs frequently rely on potentially outdated generic datasets for wood product outputs and mill efficiencies. Assumptions regarding sawmill efficiencies and sawmill-specific wood product outputs have a direct and significant impact on wood product C LCAs because these variables affect the net carbon footprint of the finished product. The goal of this analysis was to evaluate how well standard wood product C LCA inputs and assumptions for the two initial wood products LCA steps (i) forest operations and (ii) wood processing represent the current state of the wood processing industry in California. We found that sawmill efficiencies and wood product outputs both support and deviate from lookup tables currently used in publications supporting the climate-forest policy dialogue. We recommend further analysis to resolve the major discrepancies in the carbon fraction stored in durable wood products and production-related emissions to improve C LCA metrics and advance forest-related climate policy discussions in California and elsewhere.
Highlights
Carbon stored in wood products plays a major role in greenhouse gas (GHG) related forest management analytics such as required for national GHG inventories [1], forest, carbon offset markets [2], GHG impact analysis of forest management options [3,4], or quantifying nature-based climate solutions [5]
LCA) for wood products consist of several steps along a cradle to grave path: fossil fuel emissions related to harvest and in-forest processing activities, transportation to a manufacturing facility such as saw or paper mill, fossil fuel emissions and product groups manufactured at the processing site, transportation to and from distribution centers, in-use and post-use GHG emission profiles, and displaced fossil fuel intensive non-wood products
(“slash”) included around 0.957 million ODT. While most of this biomass was burnt on-site or scattered in the forest, around 0.266 million ODT were shipped to power plants and results in 0.081 million mg CO2 equivalents (CO2 e) in avoided fossil fuel emissions
Summary
Carbon stored in wood products plays a major role in greenhouse gas (GHG) related forest management analytics such as required for national GHG inventories [1], forest, carbon offset markets [2], GHG impact analysis of forest management options [3,4], or quantifying nature-based climate solutions [5]. Wood product carbon inputs frequently rely on standardized inputs that might be outdated. LCA) for wood products consist of several steps along a cradle to grave path: fossil fuel emissions related to harvest and in-forest processing activities, transportation to a manufacturing facility such as saw or paper mill, fossil fuel emissions and product groups manufactured at the processing site (including fossil fuel offsets by using mill residues for energy production), transportation to and from distribution centers, in-use (e.g., half-life of products) and post-use GHG emission profiles (e.g., energetic use, deposition fate, non-CO2 emission profiles), and displaced fossil fuel intensive non-wood products (e.g., concrete, steel, aluminum). Carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions can be used as a standardized metric for mass-balance equations. If non-CO2 GHG emissions are anticipated or stored carbon is reported on, CO2 equivalents (CO2 e) can be used to further extend this standardization metric. Forests 2021, 12, 177 carbon is reported on, CO2 equivalents (CO2e) can be used to further extend this standardization metric
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