AHEC has commissioned what it describes as the biggest life cycle analysis study undertaken for wood to date, from US consultant PE International.
The first ISO-compliant report from this has just been released for US rough sawn kiln-dred hardwood lumber, looking at its environmental impact from the forest to the manufacturer, or processor – a so-called cradle to gate analysis. The report for US hardwood veneer is still under way, but should be released by the year end, when AHEC will be able to give the full LCA picture for American hardwoods to the international market.
In the next stage of the project, AHEC will work with the design and manufacturing community to assess the environmental impacts of working with and processing American hardwoods, and ultimately recycling and disposing of the products made from them.
A central element of this is already taking place in the UK, with the RCA students challenged to design chairs using American hardwoods. Part of their brief, following instruction by PE International in LCA generally and its cradle to gate analysis for US hardwood in particular, is to continue the LCA process through the manufacture and delivery of each chair design, to give a full cradle to grave assessment.
The students are working on the project with furniture manufacturer Benchmark and their finished chairs will be put on show at the London Design Festival in September. There will also be a press conference on their work just before and a publication, detailing the technical and cradle to grave LCA performance of each design, will be released around the same time.
The LCA report on rough-sawn KD lumber is on AHEC’s website, www.americanhardwood.org/sustainability/life-cycle-assessment. It includes a "senstivity analysis" showing how environmental impacts vary according to species, thickness, delivery transport mode and distance.
The panel of LCA experts, who reviewed it to achieve ISO compliance, remarked on its "excellent execution".
A more detailed article on the new LCA report follows.
