Environmental performance of solid wood products: review of EPDs and environmentally-based structural design

Abstract

This study reviews the EPDs of structural solid wood (SW) products produced in Europe, using the NativeLCA methodology, and proposes a method to determine the strength classes of these products based on the visual grading procedure given by European standards. The EPDs’ search was performed in the ECO Platform database, and a total of 18 datasets were identified. The analysis of these EPDs found that the datasets of SW products may be grouped according to the processing considered: green products (high moisture content) (three datasets); sawn products (not planed) (five datasets); and planed products (ten datasets). The review of structural data identified that only five datasets provided the strength classes of products. This lack of information on structural properties does not allow a comparison that takes into account the different mechanical performance of the products. In order to enable the comparison of the environmental impacts of products for structural applications, a methodology was developed to estimate the strength classes of these products. This methodology is based on the visual grading procedures of SW products given by European standards and uses the identification of density, and wood’s country of origin and species.