Readjusting the climate change hyperfocus: how expanding the scope of impact categories will affect the evaluation of wood buildings

Abstract

The sole focus on reducing the climate impact of dwellings by using wood is neglecting other impacts on nature. Therefore, this study clarifies the potential burden shift by considering ten more impact categories than greenhouse gas emissions. It assesses four wood buildings and one reference concrete building by using the method of life cycle assessment. What stands out is that wood dwellings perform better than the concrete building in most impact categories except for abiotic depletion potential and ozone layer depletion potential (ODP). The latter also experiences an impact increase when wood is used to decrease climate impact as global warming potential (GWP). The wood dwellings have a general inverse correlation between GWP ranking and ODP and some resource use indicators where plastics and cement-based materials influence the latter. Bio-based materials’ contribution to acidification and eutrophication is more considerable than to GWP. Upon the findings, increased inclusion of impact categories among researchers and practitioners must follow to expand the knowledge base. A foundation for future conscious decisions of using wood in dwellings and the challenging debate of reaching consent of which other impact categories should attain focus for being improved.