Life Cycle Inventory for Currently Produced Pine Roundwood
Journal of Cleaner Production 2019
Edgars Kuka, Dace Cīrule, Ingeborga Andersone, Ziedonis Miklašēvičs, Bruno Andersons

Life cycle inventory (LCI) is the basis for calculating the environmental impacts of different products. The overall guidelines for data collection and other related aspects are standardized in ISO 14040 and 14044 standards. The importance of such studies is increasing due to the sustainability concern we are facing today. It must be considered that raw wood products (roundwood, pulpwood and fuelwood) are not carbon neutral as previously assumed. Large amounts of pine roundwood are used in production of different wood products in Latvia, however the information about the environmental burdens associated with the roundwood production is unknown. Moreover most of the life cycle assessment and LCI studies reported in literature use data characteristic of current forest management practices for describing the forest management over the whole tree growing time. However, it excludes the time aspect, which in case of pine covers at least hundred years during which the forestry has undergone fundamental changes. Such approach does not comply with ISO 14044 standard data quality requirements introducing a significant error in evaluation of environmental performance of wood products. The main objective of the present study was to determine which forest management processes should be included in the LCI for currently produced pine roundwood in Latvia and based on these results compile the LCI. Forest management history analysis showed that only logging operations should be included in the system boundary. Seed production, seedling production and silvilcultural operations were not used or had only minor impact due to low mechanization level in the past. Taking into account the time aspect the LCI was developed and the results can be used for evaluating the environmental performance of wooden products manufactured by using currently produced pine roundwood in Latvia. The proposed approach used in the study gives more accurate results of environmental impacts for currently produced roundwood.


Atslēgas vārdi
LCA, dzīves cikla analīze, ietekmes uz vidi
DOI
10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.07.004
Hipersaite
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652619323376

Kuka, E., Cīrule, D., Andersone, I., Miklašēvičs, Z., Andersons, B. Life Cycle Inventory for Currently Produced Pine Roundwood. Journal of Cleaner Production, 2019, Vol. 235, 613.-625.lpp. ISSN 0959-6526. Pieejams: doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.07.004

Publikācijas valoda
English (en)
RTU Zinātniskā bibliotēka.
E-pasts: uzzinas@rtu.lv; Tālr: +371 28399196