Life cycle analysis (LCA) will become an increasingly significant sales and marketing tool for the timber sector and provide the means to improve the carbon performance of wood products even further.
These were among the statements from The American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC), delivered to an 80-strong audience of “key decision makers from the timber sector and design community”, at London’s Carpenters’ Hall last week.
The event attracted representatives of leading UK timber businesses, furniture and other wood product designers, and engineers and architects. The audience also included a delegation of Australian architects and building professionals visiting to look at timber construction projects.
AHEC European director David Venables said that the organisation’s own LCA “cradle to gate” study for US hardwoods, undertaken by consultant PE International and billed as the biggest yet carried out in the timber trade, had just undergone its second peer review.
“We are looking for hardwood to make increasing inroads in the construction market, where it’s not always been a prime choice material, and we do see significant opportunities,” he said. “At the same time we see LCA becoming a real driving force in construction procurement and want to be ready for that.”
AHEC executive director Mike Snow added that LCA was also vital given continuing market perceptions that timber was a declinining resource – despite continuing growth in boreal forests.
“We need to deal with that, but at the same time ensure our claims are backed with science – there is plenty of ‘greenwash’ out there,” he said.
Rupert Scott of Forest Industries Intelligence said an ‘ireport’ developed out of the AHEC study by PE already provided a means for computer modelling the carbon footprint of different US hardwoods delivered to different parts of the world.
“This has also highlighted where the environmental ‘hotspots’ for timber are,” he said. “It has shown, for instance, that kilning rather than transport is the larger contributor to timber’s greenhouse gas emissions.”
This data, he added, would be incorporated into EU Environmental Product Declarations for US hardwoods.
The next step, said Mr Venables, was to work with timber specifiers and users to develop AHEC’s “cradle to gate” LCA into a “cradle to grave” analysis.
“We are already involved in a project with Aberrant Architecture and Benchmark Joinery looking at all the materials and energy inputs and outputs in producing furniture in various US hardwood species,” he said.
This, ultimately, he said, would provide a tool for working with timber users to cut the overall carbon footprint of using the material.
