Recycled Cross-Laminated Timber as a Low Environmental Impact Alternative to Virgin Material: Latvia Case Study
Case Studies in Construction Materials 2025
Pēteris Vasuks, Ilze Vamža, Megija Valtere, Terēza Bezručko, Dagnija Blumberga

Building with wood has become more popular and so has the circularity concept and carbon storage in products. This study aims to analyse the life cycle impacts of cross-laminated timber (CLT) recycling. Functional unit of 1 m3 was chosen for the CLT and recycled cross-laminated timber (ReCLT) comparison. For the life cycle assessment, the ReCiPe methodology was used allowing to calculate midpoint and endpoint accumulated impacts of both ReCLT and CLT, therefore allowing for the best comparison. Overall, the ReCLT showed significantly reduced environmental impacts in endpoint categories from 50 % to 80 % reduction in the single score evaluation. Although midpoint impacts showed mostly reduced environmental impacts, e.g., global warming, land use and others, the water eutrophication – both marine and freshwater, leading to think for improvements in the recycling process.


Keywords
Circular economy | Environmental impacts | Global warming | Land use | Wood
DOI
10.1016/j.cscm.2024.e04094
Hyperlink
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214509524012464

Vasuks, P., Vamža, I., Valtere, M., Bezručko, T., Blumberga, D. Recycled Cross-Laminated Timber as a Low Environmental Impact Alternative to Virgin Material: Latvia Case Study. Case Studies in Construction Materials, 2025, Vol. 22, Article number e04094. e-ISSN 2214-5095. Available from: doi:10.1016/j.cscm.2024.e04094

Publication language
English (en)
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