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Sammanfattning

Reducing carbon emissions is a top priority for combating climate change, and theuse of wood products is one important strategy toward this direction. However, theimpact pathways of wood products remain subjective to uncertainties, and there is alack of consensus over the methodology for assessing impacts. This review focuses onthe accounting of benefits, when wood-based products substitute non-wood prod-ucts. The carbon impact of substitution is measured through the substitution factor(SF), which is derived from a comparative estimation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emis-sions of wood and non-wood products, using life cycle assessment (LCA). The calcula-tion of SF is influenced by several factors such as system boundaries, functional unit,life cycle stages, product types, substitution assumptions, and end-of-life considera-tions. This review addresses the previously mentioned challenges and provides a sum-mary of SFs for longer-lived wood products, categorized by product type, systemboundary, and country. The findings show that SFs for wood products are higher inconstruction applications than in interior or furniture uses, with regional variationsreflecting differences in the substitution effect. Among product categories, the sawn-wood category exhibits the highest SF, followed by engineering wood products andwood-based panels. GHG emissions estimates are sensitive to whether biogenic car-bon is accounted for, which in turn influences the respective SFs. Different biogeniccarbon accounting methods yield varying outcomes, making this a divisive issue inLCA. Additionally, this review identifies sources of variability and uncertainty in SFsestimation and highlights a range of challenges linked to LCA aspects. Therefore, thisreview emphasize precautions within the LCA domain to ensure a more realistic esti-mation of carbon impacts while managing variability and uncertainties.

Nyckelord

Substitution; substitution factors; carbonwood-based products; life cycle assessment; GHG emissions

Publicerad i

Carbon Management
2025, volym: 16, nummer: 1, artikelnummer: 2536350

SLU författare

UKÄ forskningsämne

Trävetenskap
Miljövetenskap

Publikationens identifierare

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17583004.2025.2536350

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/143226