Life Cycle Assessment of Forest Products

This brief contains information on the reduction of environmental impact and explains how it is a key driver for the R&D of new forest products. The authors, experts in the field, describe how Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used to assess the environmental impact of such products, e.g. in order to guide R&D or attract investments. The authors describe the main challenges of carrying out LCAs on forest products, make recommendations for managing these challenges, and discuss future research needs. LCA case studies are used to illustrate the challenges, covering a variety of forest products: building components, biofuels, industrial chemicals, textile fibres and clothing. Described challenges include the planning of LCA studies (e.g.how can one use LCA in R&D?), the modelling of product systems (how can one handle multi-functionality and uncertainties related to waste handling and geographical location of future production?) and environmental impact (how can one assess water and land use impact, and the climate impact of biomass?).

Dr. Gustav Sandin Albertsson is based in the SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden in Borås. He is a researcher in the Department of Sustainable Built Environment. His most recent project is called ‘Trash-2-Cash’, an EU Horizon 2020 project on the development of designed high-value products from zero-value waste textiles and fibres. Dr. Albertsson has published several peer-reviewed articles featuring life cycle assessment research.Prof. Dr. Magdalena Svanström is based at Chalmers University of Technology in the Chalmers Chemical Environmental Science (CES) Department. Prof. Dr. Svanström also obtained her PhD from the CES department and has since published several peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. She is a Professor (‘Biträdande Professor’), at Chalmers and performs approximately 60% research.Professor Greg Peters is based in the Chemical Environmental Science (CES) department, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden since November 2014 (tenured), 60% research. The themes of his work include enhancing the depth of sustainability assessment tools and broadening their application. Prof. Peters has published 77 peer-reviewed scientific articles, 4 books and 5 chapters in books.According to the Scopus database, he has been cited 840 times and has an h-index of 15.