Abstract
Life cycle assessment was carried out for a conventional wooden furniture set produced in Mardan division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan during 2018-19. Primary data regarding inputs and outputs were collected through questionnaire surveys from 100 conventional wooden furniture set manufacturers, 50 in district Mardan and 50 in district Swabi. In the present study, cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment approach was applied for a functional unit of one conventional wooden furniture set. Production weighted average data were modelled in the environmental impacts modelling software i.e., SimaPro v.8.5. The results showed that textile used in sofa set, wood preservative for polishing and preventing insects attack and petrol used in generator had the highest contribution to all the environmental impact categories evaluated. Total cumulative energy demand for wooden furniture set manufactured was 30,005 MJ with most of the energy acquired from non-renewable fossil fuel resources.
Highlights
Wood has been used as an efficient raw material for different purposes such as construction, furniture, locomotive interiors, and packing (Nakano et al, 2018; Gasol et al, 2008)
Life cycle inventory data for hardwood lumber manufacture were collected from hundreds (100) furniture shops/industries
The results indicate that textile, petrol, and wood preservatives use had the highest contribution to all the environmental impacts evaluated
Summary
Wood has been used as an efficient raw material for different purposes such as construction, furniture, locomotive interiors, and packing (Nakano et al, 2018; Gasol et al, 2008). Wooden furniture industry is one of the oldest industries and it produces different durable products used for sitting, eating, working, lying, storage, and supporting (Cordella and Hidalgo, 2016). Furniture industry uses different raw materials to produce various products such as woods, plastics, textiles, leather and metals (GonzálezGarcía et al, 2012). Intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) recommended replacement and substitution of energyintensive non-wood-based products such as iron, steel and plastic with the wood-based products i.e., lumber, particleboard, plywood fiberboard plywood etc. The wood-based products could not be considered carbon-neutral products if the forest management is not on sustainable basis (IPCC, 2006; Hussain et al, 2017, 2018). IPCC reported that about 30% of the total greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions were contributed by global industrial sector (IPCC, 2014; Kucukvar and Samadi, 2015)
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