Carbon Mitigation Impacts of Increased Softwood Lumber and Structural Panel Use for Nonresidential Construction in the United States

Abstract

Abstract More wood use in the United States to construct low-rise nonresidential (NR) buildings would increase consumption and production of softwood (SW) lumber, engineered wood products, and structural and nonstructural wood panels. Using a consequential life-cycle analysis, we estimated the change in net CO2 emissions that would be caused by increased use of SW lumber and structural panels in NR construction. Carbon (C) storage and emissions were projected over 50 years for baseline and increased wood use scenarios using the US Forest Products Module operating within the Global Forest Products Model (USFPM/GFPM) and the Southern region timber supply model (SRTS). Increased wood use in NR construction (C content of 428 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent [tCO2e]) could provide an emissions reduction of 870 million tCO2e over 50 years or a net emissions reduction of 2.03 tCO2e/tCO2e of extra wood used in NR buildings over 50 years. The CO2 savings varied for products provided in the South, North, a...