Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) Produced in Western Washington: The Role of Logistics and Wood Species Mix

Chen, Cindy X.; Pierobon, Francesca; Ganguly, Indroneil

doi:10.3390/su11051278

Cited by 74 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…CLT is a relatively new commercially produced product particularly in the United States and limited manufacturers are in the field. Therefore, North American CLT manufacturing data are limited [95][96][97]. Mass timber buildings constructed with CLT and glulam have also been investigated for environmental benefits using LCA tools [98][99][100][101], which is covered in the following mass timber building LCA section.…”

Section: Emerging Wood Building Productsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The lumber is also dried to 12% moisture content (MC) on a dry basis (db) to aid in the gluing process, which is lower than the drying level of commodity lumber (15% MC dry basis). The LCA studies used primary data collected through the surveys from the CLT manufacturing and also used secondary data from the literature for other stages [95][96][97].…”

Section: Emerging Wood Building Productsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Life Cycle Assessment of Forest-Based Products: A Review

et al. 2019

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Climate change, environmental degradation, and limited resources are motivations for sustainable forest management. Forests, the most abundant renewable resource on earth, used to make a wide variety of forest-based products for human consumption. To provide a scientific measure of a product’s sustainability and environmental performance, the life cycle assessment (LCA) method is used. This article provides a comprehensive review of environmental performances of forest-based products including traditional building products, emerging (mass-timber) building products and nanomaterials using attributional LCA. Across the supply chain, the product manufacturing life-cycle stage tends to have the largest environmental impacts. However, forest management activities and logistics tend to have the greatest economic impact. In addition, environmental trade-offs exist when regulating emissions as indicated by the latest traditional wood building product LCAs. Interpretation of these LCA results can guide new product development using biomaterials, future (mass) building systems and policy-making on mitigating climate change. Key challenges include handling of uncertainties in the supply chain and complex interactions of environment, material conversion, resource use for product production and quantifying the emissions released.

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Section: Emerging Wood Building Productsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Emerging Wood Building Productsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life Cycle Assessment of Forest-Based Products: A Review

et al. 2019

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“…Previous studies have investigated GHG emissions and economic factors related to the use of CLT in building construction [14][15][16][17][18][19][20] and the technical aspects of using CLT slabs [21,22]. However, the use of CLT slabs in civil structures such as bridges and the environmental and economic impacts of such projects have not been investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental and Economic Evaluation of Small-Scale Bridge Repair Using Cross-Laminated Timber Floor Slabs

Iwase

Sasaki

Araki³

et al. 2020

Sustainability

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Cross-laminated timber (CLT) has gained popularity worldwide in recent years, and its use in buildings and civil engineering structures has attracted attention in Japan. In this study, the life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) balance and costs associated with CLT floor slabs were evaluated with respect to small-scale bridge repair as the first instance of the use of CLT in civil engineering projects in Japan. Additionally, waterproofing treatment was applied to CLT slabs, and the potential GHG and cost reduction of CLT in comparison with reinforced concrete (RC) slabs were examined. GHG emissions were the smallest for non-waterproofed CLT slabs and the greatest for RC slabs. When replacing RC slabs with CLT slabs without waterproofing, fossil-derived GHG emissions can be reduced by 73 kg-CO2eq/m2 per slab, and fossil/wood-derived GHG emissions can be reduced by 67 kg-CO2eq/m2; however, the use of disposed CLT as fuel is essential. Moreover, a reduction in GHG emissions can be expected if RC slabs are replaced with CLT slabs that are waterproofed only once every 20 years. Further, the cost associated with RC slabs is 20% of that attributable to CLT slabs. Hence, measures need to be taken to reduce the cost of CLT and waterproofing materials.

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“…According to the study, the total GHG emissions amounted to 0.126 t-CO 2 e/m 2 , including the impact of biogenic carbon storage. In a similar manner, the impacts evaluated for low-rise CLT buildings in Slovenia [5], including the impact of carbon storage, totalled 0.027-0.163 t-CO 2 e/m 2 .…”

Section: Comparison With Other Studiesmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Hence, these materials can meet more generic needs when designing and constructing new buildings. However, there are concerns about the environmental impacts of the engineered wood production compared to lumber because of the complexity of the production processes, and the use of adhesives [3][4][5][6][7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Impacts of Building Construction Using Cross-laminated Timber Panel Construction Method: A Case of the Research Building in Kyushu, Japan

2020

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In Japan, there has been an increase in the number of buildings built using cross-laminated timber (CLT) in order to utilize the abundant forest resources in the country. However, no studies have evaluated the environmental impact of the construction of CLT buildings in Japan. This study evaluates the environmental impacts from the start of construction to the completion of a real CLT building in Kumamoto city, Kyushu region, southern Japan. We investigated the input of the materials and energy used in the construction of the building. The environmental impact categories evaluated include climate change, ozone layer depletion, eutrophication, acidification, and photochemical oxidation. We found that the concrete used for the foundations, and the cement-based soil stabilizer used for ground reinforcement accounted for 42% of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The construction site was previously used as a seedbed field, necessitating ground reinforcement. Furthermore, the large foundations were designed in order to raise the low height of the wooden structure from the ground level. Developing and applying methods with lower environmental impacts for ground reinforcement and building foundations is recommended. In addition, we found that by using biomass-derived electricity in CLT manufacturing, the environmental impacts of CLT manufacturing could be reduced, thus reducing the environmental impacts of the entire building. The biogenic carbon fixed in the wooden parts during the building usage accounted for 32% of the total GHG emissions of the building construction. Since this biogenic carbon will be released to the atmosphere at the end-of-life stage of the building, a long-term usage of the CLT buildings and/or reuse of the CLT is recommended.

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Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) Produced in Western Washington: The Role of Logistics and Wood Species Mix

Cited by 74 publications

References 17 publications

Life Cycle Assessment of Forest-Based Products: A Review

Life Cycle Assessment of Forest-Based Products: A Review

Environmental and Economic Evaluation of Small-Scale Bridge Repair Using Cross-Laminated Timber Floor Slabs

Environmental Impacts of Building Construction Using Cross-laminated Timber Panel Construction Method: A Case of the Research Building in Kyushu, Japan

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