Pablo Van der Lugt

Delft University of Technology | TU · Department of Environmental Technology & Design

In the global climate agreements made during COP 21 in Paris, the role of forests and wood products have gained more attention considering their important impact – both negative and positive – through deforestation, forest conservation, afforestation and increasing application of wood in durable (construction) products acting as carbon sink. A prom...

This report gives a Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) and carbon footprint analysis on a selection of industrial bamboo products. The LCA is made for cradle-to-gate, plus the end-of-life stages of the bamboo products. For end-of-life it is assumed that 90% of the bamboo products are incinerated in an electrical power plant, and 10% will end-up in landfil...

Climate change is increasingly acknowledged as a threat to human society. In the global warming debate, the role of forests and wood products increasingly gains attention considering their important impact – both negative and positive – through deforestation, forest conservation, afforestation and increasing application of wood in durable (construc...

Purpose There are many recent proposals in life cycle assessment (LCA) to calculate temporary storage of carbon in bio-based products. However, there is still no consensus on how to deal with the issue. The main questions are: how do these proposals relate to each other, to what extent are they in line with the classical LCA method (as defined in I...

In a carbon footprint assessment, the greenhouse gas emissions during the life cycle of a material can be measured, and compared to alternative products in terms of kg CO2 equivalent. If applied correctly, wood acetylation opens up a range of new innovative applications in which high performance yet carbon intensive non-renewable materials such as...

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the commonly accepted methodology to systematically assess the environmental impact of a product or material over the full life cycle, thus from the extraction of resources until the end phase of demolition or recycling (from cradle till grave). The objective of this study is two-fold. The first objective is to gain a...

Bamboo has some positive aspects compared to wood:-it can grow on slopes and other areas where foresting of wood is not possible, and it grows fast.-it can replace tropical hardwood, so it can mitigate the decrease of tropical forest area.-it can support the local economies in the third world.This article is based on a bamboo species from China (Ph...

Materials have a considerable impact on the environmental sustainability of the products in which they are used. Due to the increasing population and consumption worldwide, more raw materials are consumed than can be produced globally, making especially resource depletion of both abiotic and biotic resources an urgent problem. Due to its good prope...

This paper discusses the potential of bamboo as a building material for Western countries. In the study presented, bamboo culms were environmentally and financially assessed and compared to building materials more common in Western Europe, e.g., steel, concrete and timber. Furthermore, a case study was done of temporary European bamboo buildings, s...

To get a deeper understanding of the factors influencing the bamboo sectors in Ecuador and Colombia with an emphasis on the countries' export potential, an elaborate SWOT analysis was conducted based on interviews with various key stakeholders in the countries' bamboo sectors. The analysis shows that the sector is improving but nevertheless is stil...

For two bamboo products, bamboo in its natural form (the culm) and in an industrial form (as a panel), the environmental impact was determined and compared to alternatives. This comparison was made using a model that uses data from Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), based on the use of these products in the Netherlands. The consequences of the applicatio...