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FEATURE ARTICLE
The Carbon Impacts of Wood
Products
Richard Bergman
Maureen Puettmann
Adam Taylor
Kenneth E. Skog
Abstract
Wood products have many environmental advantages over nonwood alternatives. Documenting and publicizing these
merits helps the future competitiveness of wood when climate change impacts are being considered. The manufacture of
wood products requires less fossil fuel than nonwood alternative building materials such as concrete, metals, or plastics. By
nature, wood is composed of carbon that is captured from the atmosphere during tree growth. These two effects—substitution
and sequestration—are why the carbon impact of wood products is favorable. This article shows greenhouse gas emission
savings for a range of wood products by comparing (1) net wood product carbon emissions from forest cradle–to–mill output
gate minus carbon storage over product use life with (2) cradle-to-gate carbon emissions for substitute nonwood products.
The study assumes sustainable forest management practices will be used for the duration of the time for the forest to regrow
completely from when the wood was removed for product production during harvesting. The article describes how the carbon
impact factors were developed for wood products such as framing lumber, flooring, moulding, and utility poles. Estimates of
carbon emissions saved per unit of wood product used are based on the following: (1) gross carbon dioxide (CO
2
) emissions
from wood product production, (2) CO
2
from biofuels combusted and used for energy during manufacturing, (3) carbon
stored in the final product, and (4) fossil CO
2
emissions from the production of nonwood alternatives. The results show
notable carbon emissions savings when wood products are used in constructing buildings in place of nonwood alternatives.
Evaluating the environmental impact of product
choices is increasingly important to help address sustain-
ability issues. Wood products have many environmental
advantages over nonwood alternatives (Wegner et al. 2010,
Lippke et al. 2011, Ritter et al. 2011, Eriksson et al. 2012).
One advantage is a lower global warming impact, which
refers to the impact on climate change of product production
from emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to the
atmosphere. Although there are many GHGs, carbon
dioxide (CO
2
) gas released from burning fossil fuels is the
main driver of global warming (Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change [IPCC] 2013). To provide some context on
the magnitude of the problem, we looked at global fossil
fuel CO
2
emissions. The US Energy Information Agency
(US EIA) reported that in 2011, global fossil fuel CO
2
emissions were about 35.9 billion tons,
1
an increase of 3.4
percent from 2010, with China contributing the most at 9.6
billion tons (US EIA 2014a). The increase in global carbon
emissions occurred even though the United States, the
second largest contributor at 6.1 billion tons, had lower
emissions in 2011 than 2010.
An area of huge concern is fossil fuel and cement
emissions because of their ties to building construction,
particularly in Southeast Asia (i.e., China), where fossil fuel
resources are consumed to build residential structures
(Wang et al. 2013). For example, although global fossil
fuel and cement emissions declined 1.4 percent in 2009
The authors are, respectively, Research Forest Products Technol-
ogist, USDA Forest Serv., Forest Products Lab., Madison, Wisconsin
(rbergman@fs.fed.us [corresponding author]); Owner, WoodLife
Environmental Consultants, LLC, Corvallis, Oregon (maureen.
puettmann@woodlifeconsulting.com); Associate Professor and
Wood Products Extension Specialist, Tennessee Forest Products
Center, Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville (AdamTaylor@utk.edu); and
Supervisory Research Forester, USDA Forest Serv., Forest Products
Lab., Madison, Wisconsin (kskog@fs.fed.us). This paper was
received for publication in May 2014. Article no. 14-00047.
ÓForest Products Society 2014.
Forest Prod. J. 64(7):000–000.
doi:10.13073/FPJ-D-14-00047
1
The present article was written with the wood building products
industry in mind. Therefore, English units will be used instead of
metric units.
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FOREST PRODUCTS JOURNAL Vol. 64, No. 7 0
because of the financial fallout from the Great Recession,
this circumstance was quickly reversed with a substantial
gain of 5.9 percent in 2010, which also exceeded the world
2010 gross domestic product (GDP) gain of 5.0 percent, a
disturbing condition of increasing fossil carbon intensity per
GDP when considering present and future impacts to
climate change (Friedlingstein et al. 2010, Peters et al.
2012, British Petroleum [BP] 2014). Cement is an important
component of concrete, which competes directly with wood
in buildings.
Documenting the merits of wood will be important to the
future competitiveness of the forest industry when selection
of products will be made in part based on the climate change
impacts associated with their production and use. In the
United States, buildings consume roughly 40 percent of the
energy generated; this includes the ‘‘operating energy’’ of
buildings as well as the ‘‘embodied energy’’ (the energy
required for manufacturing) of the building products
produced (US Department of Energy [US DOE] 2012). To
ensure that buildings incorporate products with low
environmental impacts, it is important that information on
the net carbon emissions associated with production and use
be provided in a format that is clear, concise, and available
to a wide range of building product specifiers and users,
including architects, engineers, builders, and homeowners.
The environmental advantages of wood products are
important and may be common sense to many; however, not
everyone recognizes and understands these merits. Life-
cycle assessment (LCA) is the internationally accepted and
standardized method for evaluating the environmental
impacts of products. LCA is a scientific approach to
assessing the holistic environmental impacts of a product,
including the resources consumed and the emissions
released. An LCA can cover the life of a product from
extraction of raw materials to production (i.e., ‘‘cradle-to-
gate’’; Fig. 1), or from extraction through production to
distribution, use, and final disposal (i.e., from ‘‘cradle-to-
grave’’). LCA can identify unit processes of the manufac-
turing stage with higher environmental impact (‘‘hot
spots’’), and companies can use this information to improve
their product’s environmental footprint. For cradle-to-gate
manufacturing of wood products, the manufacturing stage
typically outweighs the energy consumption and carbon
emissions associated with the forest resource removal and
regeneration stage and raw material transportation stage by
at least a factor of 10 (Puettmann and Wilson 2005,
Puettmann et al. 2010). For our analysis, we estimate net
carbon emissions through product production and include
carbon stored during the useful life of a wood product. We
also include emissions from raw material transportation but
not transport and installation of wood products (or nonwood
substitutes) in end uses. This comparison implicitly assumes
that transport and installation emissions are similar for wood
products and nonwood substitutes.
Life-cycle assessment can be used to compare the
environmental impacts of products; consumers can use this
information to choose products with better environmental
footprints (e.g., lower net GHG emissions). Many cradle-to-
gate LCA studies have focused on wood products (www.
CORRIM.org) and their nonwood alternatives. These
analyses generally indicate that the manufacturing stage
(rather than raw material extraction or transportation)
accounts for greater environmental emissions then any
stage of a wood products’ life cycle. LCAs have shown a
low emission environmental profile for wood compared with
nonwood products that can serve the same function.
Performing an LCA for a product is a detailed, data-
intensive process, and the results may be difficult to
Figure 1.—Generic cradle-to-gate product production flow diagram.
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0 BERGMAN ET AL.
interpret for nonexperts. Thus there is a need for simplified
metrics from LCA studies, especially to enable users and
specifiers of building products to choose materials with
favorable environmental footprints.
In the present study and the Consortium for Research on
Renewable Industrial Materials (CORRIM) research done
so far, a distinction is made between logging and mill
residues that are part of the sequestered carbon in the
standing tree. Logging residues including branches, bark,
and tops that are generated during harvesting, which make
up approximately 30 to 50 percent of the tree harvested, are
left behind in the forest to decay (Lippke et al. 2011,
Ganguly et al. 2014, Hyto
¨nen and Moilanen 2014).
However, Sathre and Gustavsson (2011) showed logging
residues can be collected and used as fuel to generate
electricity, thus replacing fossil-fuel based electricity, as
reported by Bergman et al. (2013b) in the case of redwood
logging in California. Most likely, though, logging residues
will not be collected unless part of a forest management plan
and thus will be left to decay in the forest, which is the
assumption made in the present article. Therefore, assuming
sustainable forest management practices will be followed
from the time the forest was harvested for wood until the
time the forest has completely regrown, the net carbon flux
of the forest for logging residues is zero. This could be a
conservative estimate because some of the carbon in the
logging residues may become part of the soil organic carbon
and be permanently sequestrated (Sathre and Gustavsson
2011, Skog et al. 2014). Concerning the impacts on soil
carbon from forest harvesting, we assumed no lasting effect
on soil carbon would occur during forest harvesting
(Johnson and Curtis 2001, Lippke et al. 2011, Pacaldo et
al. 2013), although there is some uncertainty around this
assumption (Garten 2002, Nave et al. 2010). As for mill
residues, the mill residues are a coproduct of the log brought
to the production facility. Because mill residues are
generated on-site, their use for energy or other purposes
such as feedstock for other products is practically 100
percent. Mill residues not used for energy are not considered
in calculating carbon impact factors for the same reason that
logging residues (for which sustainable forest management
practices will enable the forest to regrow to its original state
before the next harvest) are not considered, and thus no net
carbon flux from the forest for mill residues occurs. This
may be a conservative estimate as well because some carbon
from mill residues may be stored in various other wood
products for several decades.
Carbon footprint
The quantity of CO
2
and other GHGs released per unit of
product during a product’s manufacturing and, in some
cases, end use and disposal, is sometimes referred to as its
‘‘carbon footprint’’ (International Organization for Stan-
dardization [ISO] 2013). Coal, oil, natural gas, and wood all
contain solid carbon that becomes CO
2
gas when the
material is burned for energy. CO
2
, methane (CH
4
), nitrous
oxide (N
2
O), and water vapor are the primary GHGs of
concern. Increases in GHGs in the atmosphere are
considered the primary factor in global warming. Global
warming impact is measured for each GHG in tons of CO
2
equivalent (CO
2
eq), where 1 ton of CO
2
emissions
represents the global warming (radiative forcing (RF)) it
causes over a specific time period, typically 100 years.
Because of the need to conserve energy resources and
avoid GHG emissions, there is a global push to choose
materials that have a low carbon footprint. The carbon
footprint of a product can be calculated by measuring all the
direct and indirect energy and material inputs to the
manufacturing of a product and considering the carbon
emissions associated with these inputs. Therefore, a carbon
footprint can be determined through an LCA with the
analysis limited to emissions that have an effect on climate.
During the production of wood materials, energy is used
during harvesting to run equipment such as chainsaws and
skidders, to fuel the transportation of logs to mills, and
during manufacturing to power saws, planers, dryers, etc.
Depending on the source of energy, the released emissions
contribute to a variety of impact categories such as
acidification (e.g., sulfur emissions), eutrophication (nitro-
gen), smog (particulates), and global warming (CO
2
).
Although many gases (e.g., methane) contribute to global
warming and carbon footprint, CO
2
is by far the most
important GHG in wood product life cycles from forest
cradle–to–mill output gate (Puettmann and Wilson 2005,
Puettmann et al. 2010).
Fossil versus biogenic carbon emissions
The production of energy from combustion sources
results in CO
2
emissions. When coal, oil, natural gas, or
wood are burned, water vapor and CO
2
are the primary
atmospheric emissions. The resultant energy may be used
directly in the production process, as heat or steam for wood
dryers, or indirectly, as sources for electricity generation
that can be used to power electric saw motors. For fossil
fuels (coal, petroleum, and natural gas), the CO
2
emissions
are commonly classified as ‘‘fossil CO
2
.’’ This classification
is in contrast to ‘‘biogenic CO
2
,’’ which is emitted from the
burning of biomass, such as wood. In the case of wood
products, much of the process energy for manufacturing
facilities is provided from burning wood-processing (mill)
residues (Puettmann and Wilson 2005), thus primarily
emitting biogenic CO
2
.
In terms of the contribution of CO
2
to the greenhouse
effect and the impact to climate change, there is no
difference between the atmospheric chemistry and physics
of biogenic and fossil CO
2
. However, a distinction is
commonly made between biogenic and fossil energy sources
in life-cycle–based analyses because of the cycling of
biogenic CO
2
from the atmosphere into wood resources and
back to the atmosphere (i.e., natural carbon cycle) in
comparison with the one-way flow of fossil CO
2
to the
atmosphere. For attributional life-cycle analysis, which
assesses the flux of emissions in the year a product is
produced, biomass energy sources are considered to be
offset when currently growing trees absorb CO
2
from the
atmosphere as part of the photosynthesis process. Under an
assumption of sustainable forest management, forests are
sustained so annual carbon released does not exceed the
annual carbon absorbed for the indefinite future. Therefore,
the atmosphere does not see a net increase in CO
2
emissions
(Beauchemin and Tampier 2008, Fernholz et al. 2009,
Richter et al. 2009). Therefore, we use the attributional life-
cycle analysis framework with a focus on current year net
emissions as part of an assumed long-term forest carbon
balance to count net zero emissions from wood energy
emissions.
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FOREST PRODUCTS JOURNAL Vol. 64, No. 7 0
A number of alternate methods can be used to evaluate
the impact of biogenic carbon emissions. One way is to use
attributional life-cycle analysis but to estimate net emissions
over a specific period of years by explicitly tracking carbon
fluxes that include harvest and regrowth of the forest (i.e.,
temporal effects). A second method involves consequential
life-cycle analysis, where a case of harvest and regrowth is
compared with a case without harvest and continued forest
growth over a specific time horizon. Features of these
approaches can vary depending on the time frame of
analysis, the extent of geographic area evaluated, and other
factors. For each of these types of evaluation, the degree to
which biogenic emissions are offset within a certain time
frame can depend on many potential factors including (1)
the types of biomass (e.g., logging residue, roundwood, new
plantations, mill residue), (2) the age of forests at harvest,
(3) forest growth rates, and (4) the extent to which increased
wood prices lead landowners to hold or increase land in
forest or intensify management (Brander et al. 2009,
Branda
˜o and Levasseur 2011, Cherubini et al. 2011,
Bergman et al. 2012, Agostini et al. 2013, Guest et al.
2013, Helin et al. 2013). Regardless of the framework, forest
growth from sustainable forestry can offset biogenic
emissions over time. It could take a shorter time (a decade
or less), or a longer time (many decades), depending on the
wood source and circumstances. The extent of the offset can
also be influenced by the GHG metric that is used (global
warming potential (GWP) vs. time-zero equivalent (TIZE);
Salazar and Bergman 2013, Nepal and Skog 2014). For
instance, the method used to estimate the impact to climate
change for the delay of wood decay while in storage either
as a product or in a landfill can provide different results.
This happens because the TIZE approach quantifies the RF
effects as they occur from GHG emissions, while the more
common GHG metric, GWP, quantifies RF effects from the
time of analysis out to the end of the selected time horizon,
typically 100 years for the GHG regardless of when the
emission occurred. The end result is that the TIZE approach
better estimates the impact to climate change for temporary
carbon sequestration in products and wood decay than GWP
(Salazar and Bergman 2013). However, if the additional
variables listed above had been included in the analysis, this
would have increased the complexity, thus generating more
uncertainty. Consequentially, attributional life-cycle analy-
sis as is done in our analysis is best used because it is more
robust for estimating the emissions directly linked with the
life cycle of a product and for emissions accounting.
Carbon storage
Wood can store carbon in trees and long-term wood
products for long time periods. A typical new 2,062-ft
2
home could contain 13,500 pounds of lumber, 3,160 pounds
of plywood, 6,470 pounds of oriented strandboard (OSB),
and 892 pounds of laminated veneer lumber, totaling 24,000
pounds of wood at 12 percent moisture content (MC) or
21,000 pounds of wood at 0 percent MC (Meil et al. 2004,
Wood Products Council [WPC] 2009). On average, OD
wood contains about 50 percent carbon by weight.
Therefore a 2,062-ft
2
home could store 10,500 pounds of
carbon or sequester 38,500 pounds of CO
2
eq,
2
assuming
wood MC is 12 percent. This value does not include
nonstructural wood products, which may have a shorter
service life. Service life of structural wood products tends to
match the service life of the structure itself. Therefore,
assuming an expected median life of 80 years for a single-
family home (Skog 2008), its stored carbon may last from
two to three forest rotation cycles of intensely managed,
highly productive forests (O’Connor 2004, Smith et al.
2005). This article considers carbon stored with products
installed in a building but not emissions that occur after the
service life of products.
As mentioned previously, carbon in wood products may
continue to be stored after its service (i.e., use) life in a
building, or it may be emitted by burning or decay. Wood
products may end up in landfills where most of the wood
does not decompose, it may be recycled into new engineered
products, it may be burned for its energy values, or it may be
reused as is in new construction (Skog 2008, Bergman et al.
2013a). Specifically, for wood to be used in new
construction, Bergman et al. (2013a) show fossil CO
2
emitted for new framing lumber and new hardwood flooring
are about four times greater than for recovered softwood
framing lumber and recovered hardwood flooring. Addi-
tionally, end-of-life (i.e., after first product use) scenarios
for old wood products can result in large cumulative energy
savings and fossil CO
2
emission reductions when discarded
wood is used to displace coal or natural gas in producing
electric power. In fact, for the base case end-of-life scenario
developed by Bergman et al. (2013a), these energy savings
would offset 53 and 75 percent of biomass energy consumed
to make new softwood framing lumber and new hardwood
flooring, respectively.
Avoided emissions
For this analysis, the ‘‘avoided emissions’’ are the fossil
carbon dioxide emissions from production of a nonwood
product alternative that are avoided when a wood product is
used instead (Fig. 2). The CO
2
emissions are estimated for
the production of the in-use equivalent amounts of the two
products. In the present study, product substitution is
assumed to be one-to-one. We assume the two products
have the same service life. This means that durability and
the long-term functionality of the structural wood product
and its nonwood substitute was considered to be equal in the
analysis, an assumption consistent with the findings of
O’Connor (2004). However, the life expectancy of all
products used in buildings varies depending upon the quality
of construction and owner preferences.
This study first estimates net carbon emission footprint
values per unit of product for a number of US-produced
wood products and for their nonwood product alternatives.
We estimate the carbon footprint for each wood product by
using fluxes shown for the wood product system in Figure 3.
The carbon flux for each nonwood product alternative (Fig.
2) is simply based on fossil fuel emissions. Second, we
estimate the savings in emissions by use of each wood
product instead of its nonwood product alternative as the
difference between the two carbon footprint estimates. In
essence, the system boundary for the present study is set to
analyze empirical data provided from raw material extrac-
tion to production through the LCA method for all products
that could be considered a partial analysis. The reason is that
although we assume sustainable forestry will be practiced in
the future, an underlying assumption exists that any
2
Using molecular weights of CO
2
and carbon, 38,500 pounds of
CO
2
¼10,500 pounds of carbon 344 kg of CO
2
/12 kg of carbon.
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0 BERGMAN ET AL.
Figure 2.—System boundary and carbon fluxes for nonwood product production (Net emissions ¼D).
Figure 3.—System boundary and carbon fluxes for wood product production and carbon storage in end-use [Net emissions ¼(AB)
þBCB¼ABC].
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FOREST PRODUCTS JOURNAL Vol. 64, No. 7 0
additional forest harvesting for product substitution would
result in no net loss of forest carbon based on today’s
forestland levels. However, this is an unlikely scenario if
product choices are made based on the current carbon
impacts presented in this article. Therefore, this additional
harvesting carbon impact will need to be analyzed and
quantified when additional wood product substitution occurs
and then included in carbon impact factors for wood
products.
Methods
Product data sources and descriptions
We used the existing wood product life-cycle inventory
(LCI) data sets to determine the net carbon emission
footprint for a range of wood products from cradle-to-
gate (Table 1; Fig. 3). Many LCI data sets for wood
product manufacturing and nonwood alternatives are
publically available through Web-based sources including
the US LCI Database (National Renewable Energy
Laboratory [NREL] 2014). In the US LCI Database,
which was used in this analysis, carbon emissions for the
wood product LCI data are allocated by mass. Interna-
tionallyacceptedLCAsoftwarewasusedformodeling
wood product production to obtain carbon emissions from
wood products and alternative materials (PRe
´Consultants
2014). As shown herein, much LCI data exist for US
wood and nonwood products, and the list of sources will
grow with continued interest in environmental issues and
LCA. Some wood products are specified by geographical
areas. For example, softwood lumber is typically
produced in four areas, the Southeast (SE), the North-
east/North Central (NE/NC), the Pacific Northwest, and
the Inland West.
Carbon content
To calculate carbon stored in various products, we
calculated the mass and biogenic carbon content of each
wood product and the nonwood substitute alternatives
(Table 2). Some of the nonwood materials (e.g., vinyl
flooring) contain carbon, but in those cases, the carbon is
from fossil (e.g., petroleum) sources. We do not consider
fossil carbon content, because unlike wood products, the
carbon transferred from fossil fuel to nonwood products is
not being replaced as wood carbon is by continuing forest
regrowth. As shown in Figure 3, forests are actively
reabsorbing carbon removed by harvest and which then is
transferred to wood products. In Figure 2, there is no
equivalent reabsorption of fossil carbon emissions by the
source of the fossil fuel. Birdsey (1992) provided the carbon
content values for the various wood products.
Difference between wood and nonwood
product carbon footprints (net carbon emission
savings)
The net carbon emission footprints for the wood product
and nonwood product, respectively, are
Wood product net carbon emissions footprint ¼ABC
(see Fig. 3)
Nonwood product net carbon emissions footprint ¼D
(see Fig. 2). The difference between the two carbon
footprints for the 11 wood products and corresponding
nonwood substitutes indicates the emissions savings from
use of a wood product rather than the nonwood alternative
and is calculated using this formula
ABCD¼Eð1Þ
where
A¼Gross carbon emissions during wood production ¼
(fossil CO
2
þbiogenic CO
2
). Cradle-to-gate product
manufacturing consumes various energy sources, and
almost all energy production results in CO
2
emissions.
Energy sources used in wood manufacture include
sources such as natural gas, diesel, gasoline, and
electricity derived from fossil fuels that release fossil
CO
2
when combusted. Biomass energy from burning
wood processing (mill) residues is a major fuel source
for energy that releases biogenic CO
2
, not fossil CO
2
,
when combusted. Gross carbon emissions are also a
reasonable proxy for energy consumption even though
Table 1.—Data sources used to develop the net carbon footprint for each wood product and its substitutes.
a
Wood product Notes Wood data source reference Substitution product Alternative data source reference
Hardwood lumber Northeast/North Central region Bergman and Bowe (2008) Polyvinyl chloride
(plastic) moulding
Mahalle and O’Connor (2009)
Southeast region Bergman and Bowe (2010b)
Softwood lumber Northeast/North Central region Bergman and Bowe (2010a) Steel stud Rowlett (2004); Studs
Unlimited, Inc. (2013)Southeast region Milota et al. (2004)
Hardwood flooring Solid strip flooring Hubbard and Bowe (2008) Vinyl flooring Potting and Blok (1995)
Engineered wood Bergman and Bowe (2011)
Doors Solid wood Knight et al. (2005) Steel door Knight et al. (2005)
Softwood decking ACQ-treated pine Bolin and Smith (2011a) Wood–plastic composite Bolin and Smith (2011a)
Siding Western red cedar Mahalle and O’Connor (2009) Vinyl siding Mahalle and O’Connor (2009)
Softwood pole Pentachlorophenol-treated wood Bolin and Smith (2011b) Concrete pole Bolin and Smith (2011b)
OSB
b
Southeast region Kline (2004) NA NA
Plywood
b
Pacific Northwest region Wilson and Sakimoto (2004) NA NA
Southeast region Wilson and Sakimoto (2004) NA NA
I-joist Pacific Northwest region Wilson and Dancer (2005) Steel joist DiBernardo (2013);
SSMA (2013)Southeast region Wilson and Dancer (2005)
Hardwood railroad tie United States Bolin and Smith (2013) Concrete railroad tie Bolin and Smith (2013)
a
ACQ ¼alkaline copper quaternary; SSMA ¼Steel Stud Manufacturer’s Association.
b
No direct nonwood substitution products for oriented strandboard (OSB) or plywood were identified. NA ¼not applicable.
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0 BERGMAN ET AL.
no carbon emissions are associated with hydroelectric
and nuclear power emissions. This occurs because
coal and natural gas are the primary energy sources
for generating power in the United States (USEIA
2014b).
B¼Carbon emissions from burning wood residues ¼
(biogenic CO
2
). Biogenic CO
2
is released when wood
is burned for energy. These biogenic carbon emis-
sions are also being reabsorbed in forests and thus are
deducted from the gross carbon emissions in this
analysis (see emission and forest sequestration fluxes
in Fig. 3).
C¼Carbon stored in the wood product. CO
2
absorbed
from the atmosphere during photosynthesis is con-
verted to wood, bark, and other parts of the tree. On
average, wood contains about 50 percent elemental
carbon by dry weight of wood (Table 2). If the tree
decays or burns, this solid carbon in the wood is
released again to the atmosphere as CO
2
gas, and the
carbon cycle continues. As long as the wood is
‘‘locked-up’’ in a product, the carbon is ‘‘seques-
tered’’ as a solid and does not contribute to climate
warming through the atmospheric greenhouse effect.
The carbon transferred to storage in a wood product is
also being replaced by regrowth in a sustainably
managed forest. This regrowth is equal to or greater
than the amount of the carbon transfer to products and
can be used to offset wood product production
emissions for the period that the carbon remains
stored in the wood product (see Fig. 3). The carbon
stored in the product was calculated by multiplying
the carbon content of a given wood product by the dry
weight of the individual wood product (Table 2) and
converting to CO
2
equivalents (Eq. 2).
Carbon storage ¼CSi¼CCi3Wi33:67 ð2Þ
where
CS
i
¼carbon storage for a unit of wood product i(lb/
unit),
CC
i
¼carbon content for wood product i(% carbon/
100),
W
i
¼weight of a unit of wood product i(lb), and
3.67 ¼ratio of the molecular weight of CO
2
to the
molecular weight of carbon.
D¼Alternate product emissions avoided ¼(Nonwood
product fossil CO
2
). When the fossil CO
2
releases
associated with the manufacture of a nonwood
product are not generated, this is considered
‘‘avoided emissions’’ (Fig. 2).
E¼Net carbon savings ¼(ABCD). The net carbon
emissions savings obtained by use of each wood
product is the difference between the carbon footprint
for the wood product and for the nonwood products
alternative. A negative value for Ecan be interpreted
as a ‘‘carbon credit’’ or carbon savings, where using
the wood product in place of a nonwood alternative
results in a reduction in the net amount of CO
2
in the
atmosphere.
Table 2.—Mass and carbon content of some US wood products and their substitutes.
a
Product Material Unit
Mass
(lb/unit)
b
Biogenic carbon
content (%)
Moulding Northeast/North Central hardwood lumber 1 bd ft (12 312 31 in.) 2.22 50
Southeast hardwood lumber 2.22 48
Polyvinyl chloride (plastic) 2.65 0
Stud Northeast/North Central softwood lumber One 2 34 stud 7.65 52
Southeast softwood lumber 9.54 53
Steel
c
5.92 0
Flooring Engineered hardwood 1 ft
2
1.28 52
Solid hardwood 2.55 50
Vinyl 0.52 0
Doors Solid wood
d
One door 55.0 50
Steel
c
84.0 0
Decking Alkaline copper quaternary–treated One deck board 18.2 53
Wood–plastic composite 36.8 27
Siding Western red cedar 100 ft
2
93.4 50
Vinyl 55.6 0
Utility pole Pentachlorophenol–treated wood One 45-ft pole 1,315 53
Concrete 4,000 0
Oriented strandboard (OSB) Southeast OSB One 4 38-ft sheet @ 3/8 in. 34.8 51
Plywood Southeast plywood One 4 38-ft sheet @ 3/8 in. 33.8 54
Pacific Northwest plywood 29.3 51
I-joist Southeast wood One 16-ft-long, 10-in.-deep joist 76.2 50
Pacific Northwest wood 95.5 50
Steel joist
c
57.2 0
Railroad tie US wood One 7 in. high 39 in. wide 38.5 ft long 139 48
US concrete 700 0
a
All comparisons are cradle-to-gate (production gate). Therefore, no product use or disposal was considered.
b
Mass is listed at 0 percent moisture content.
c
Galvanized steel processes were used for steel studs, steel doors, and steel I-joists.
d
Solid wood door used Northeast/North Central hardwood lumber as input.
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FOREST PRODUCTS JOURNAL Vol. 64, No. 7 0
E/A ¼Net carbon emission savings per unit of gross wood
emissions ¼(Net carbon savings/gross carbon
emissions during wood production).
E/C ¼Net carbon emission savings per unit of carbon in
wood ¼(Net carbon savings/carbon contents of wood
product).
Because wood product units are of varying mass, the
absolute values for carbon footprints can be difficult to
compare across products. Normalizing the net carbon
savings by dividing by gross carbon emissions or by the
carbon content of the wood can show the relative
importance of the substitution and biogenic carbon effects
for each product. Negative values for the emission savings
per unit of wood emissions indicate that the gross carbon
emissions are more than offset by the use of wood biofuel,
carbon sequestration in wood products, and avoided fossil
carbon emissions. The magnitude of these negative values
for the emissions savings per unit of carbon in the wood
product indicates how effective use of a unit of wood in the
product is in offsetting emissions compared with use of a
unit of wood in other products.
Results and Discussion
All of the wood products examined in this analysis
provide a net emission savings when used in place of the
selected nonwood alternative products (Table 3). The
columns in Table 3 are labeled with letters corresponding
to those in Equation 1. Using solid wood doors as an
example,
The net carbon savings for a single wood door
¼102:5ðAÞ64:8ðBÞ221:4ðCÞ540:8ðDÞ
¼724:5ðEÞkg CO2eq
For individual wood products, Column E(Table 3) shows
the two lowest net carbon footprints for utility poles and
solid wood doors (5,618 and 724.5 kg CO
2
eq,
respectively). This is because utility poles and solid wood
doors are the two of the three largest wood products by
mass. Wood studs, which are smaller in size, have a less
negative net carbon footprint individually, but far more are
used; thus, it doesn’t make much sense to compare the
carbon footprints of these different products. A more
important comparison is the carbon footprint of the wood
product with its nonwood alternative. As shown in Table 3,
almost all of these nonwood alternatives require more
energy for their manufacture, and the energy used is almost
entirely fossil fuels containing carbon that has been stored in
coal, oil, and natural gas for millions of years.
Normalizing the net emission savings to a unit of gross
emissions for making wood products or a unit of carbon in
the wood product helps when comparing various wood
products. For example, utility poles result in 5,618 lb CO
2
eq net emission savings per pole. However, its normalized
net emission savings per unit of gross emissions pole
production is 5.6, which is near the value of 6.2 for the
SE wood stud product. The normalized values per unit
carbon in the wood product (E/C) are also similar, 2.2 and
2.5, respectively. The normalized values per unit carbon
are consistent with the reported GHG displacement factor of
2.1 by Sathre and O’Connor (2009). For all 11 wood
products studied including panel products, the values for
normalized net carbon emissions per unit of gross emissions
(E/A) range from 1.0 to 7.6, with a mean of 4.38 6
1.99. One way to interpret this finding is that, on average,
the use of wood building products avoids the use of about
four times as much fossil fuel as the cradle-to-gate
manufacture of the wood product requires.
The most effective ways to use a unit of wood to offset
emissions is indicated by the normalized value of net
emission savings per unit of carbon in the wood product (E/
C). By this measure, wood use is most effective in use for
solid wood doors, railroad ties, and hardwood lumber,
Table 3.—Carbon emission savings from use of US wood products in place of nonwood product alternatives (pounds of CO
2
per unit
of product).
a
Product Units Notes
AB
Gross carbon released during
wood product manufacturing
Biofuel used during wood
product manufacturing
b
Hardwood lumber 1 bd ft (12 312 31 in.) Northeast/North Central region 2.0 1.3
Southeast region 2.4 1.8
Softwood lumber One 2 34 stud Northeast/North Central region 4.0 2.6
Southeast region 5.5 4.2
Hardwood flooring 1 ft
2
Solid strip flooring 2.4 1.5
Engineered wood 2.2 1.1
Doors One door Solid wood 102.5 64.8
Decking One deck board ACQ-treated pine 11.5 3.7
Siding 100 ft
2
Western red cedar 83.1 13.2
Utility poles One 4-ft pole Pentachlorophenol-treated wood 1,002 950
OSB One 4 38-ft sheet @ 3/8 in. Southeast region 41.9 23.6
Plywood One 4 38-ft sheet @ 3/8 in. Pacific Northwest region 12.6 9.0
Southeast region 22.3 14.3
I-joist One 16-ft-long, 10-in.-deep joist Pacific Northwest region 50.3 41.7
Southeast region 72.8 50.5
Railroad ties One 7 in. high 39 in. wide
38.5 ft long
United States 113.6 6.6
a
ACQ ¼alkaline copper quaternary; OSB ¼oriented strandboard.
b
Woody biomass energy.
c
Negative values represent a carbon credit.
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0 BERGMAN ET AL.
followed by utility poles, softwood lumber, pine decking,
cedar siding, and hardwood flooring.
Not all wood products have large substitution effects. In
fact, solid wood flooring had a less energy-intensive
nonwood alternative in this analysis, although the assump-
tion that vinyl flooring provides a functional equivalent to
wood flooring is debatable because of aesthetic consider-
ations and the potentially short service life of vinyl. A better
alternative for wood flooring might be ceramic or stone tile,
but we are not aware of LCI data for these products. As such
data becomes available, this type of comparative carbon
emission analysis can be redone to more accurately reflect
substitution scenarios.
Not all the products studied here have simple one-to-one,
nonwood alternatives (i.e., plywood and OSB). Concrete
block walls can be substituted for wood-framed walls that
contain OSB or plywood; however, these walls also contain
other products such as studs and nails. This type of more
complicated substitution scenario was not attempted for this
analysis but can be modeled using tools such as the Athena
Impact Estimator for Buildings (AIE4B; Athena Sustainable
Materials Institute [ASMI] 2014). For a demonstration of
the AIE4B tool using cradle-to-gate manufacturing LCI
data, see Lippke et al. (2004). Without considering the
carbon stored in the wood and not differentiating between
biogenic and fossil CO
2
emissions, Lippke et al. (2004)
showed that building wood-framed structures in Minneap-
olis, Minnesota, and Atlanta, Georgia, instead of building
steel- and concrete-framed structures reduced GHG emis-
sions by 26 and 32 percent, respectively, reductions that
were tempered by the fact all structures analyzed had
common concrete foundations. Much larger differences
were found when analyses were confined to assemblies that
contained fewer or no common elements.
Carbon emission savings for some wood products vary by
region. For hardwood lumber, the net carbon emission
savings for the NE/NC region is slightly larger than for the
SE region, about 1.0 percent more, whereas for wood studs
for the NE/NC region, the net carbon emission savings is
smaller than for the SE region, about 13 percent less. There
are two reasons for higher net carbon emissions savings for
wood studs in the SE. First, although more gross carbon is
released in manufacturing of the SE wood stud (5.5 vs. 4.0),
a greater amount of the gross carbon emissions come from
woody biomass (4.2 vs. 2.6); thus, fossil CO
2
emissions per
board foot are lower (5.5 4.2 ¼1.3 vs. 4.0 2.6 ¼1.4).
Second, the species composition for SE wood studs
(southern pines) has a substantially higher density than
species composition for the NE/NC wood stud, as noted in
Column Cin Table 3 (18.5 vs. 14.6; Milota et al. 2004,
Bergman and Bowe 2010a). Denser wood contains more
water than lighter wood at the MC. Therefore, denser wood
requires more drying to reach the same final MC starting
from the same initial MC as indicated by higher gross
carbon emissions for the SE than the NE/NC studs
(Bergman 2010). These density differences are not found
in hardwood lumber, which is primarily produced in the
eastern United States (Bergman and Bowe 2008, 2010b).
Conclusions
The reduced carbon emission impacts associated with
woody biofuel use and storage of carbon in long-lived wood
products result in lower net carbon emissions of wood
products compared with nonwood product alternatives. For
the cases we evaluated, the combined GHG emissions
reductions due to biofuel usage, carbon storage, and avoided
fossil emissions are always greater than the wood product
manufacturing carbon emissions. Thus, use of wood
products can help to reduce contributions to GHGs in the
atmosphere that increase the greenhouse effect, with the
caveat that sustainable forestry continues to occur from
product substitution. However, more wood product substi-
tution in the future would cause large removals of wood
during forest harvesting and could violate our assumption of
sustainable forestry. Therefore, this impact would increase
the carbon emissions associated with wood products and
thus lessen the effect of substitution.
For some wood products, such as wood flooring, the
nonwood substitutes are not quite equivalent because the
nonwood product is likely to have a substantially shorter use
Table 3.—Extended.
CDABCD¼EE/AE/C
Carbon stored in
the wood product
Carbon released during nonwood
product manufacturing
Net carbon emission
savings
c
Carbon emission savings per unit
of gross wood emissions
Carbon emission savings per
unit of CO
2
eq of wood
4.0 6.5 9.9 5.0 2.5
4.0 6.5 9.8 4.0 2.5
14.6 16.7 30.0 7.6 2.1
18.5 16.7 34.0 6.2 1.8
4.6 0.8 4.7 1.9 1.0
2.4 0.8 2.1 1.0 0.9
221.4 540.8 724.5 7.1 3.3
35.5 34.2 62.1 5.4 1.7
171.3 116.0 217.3 2.6 1.3
2,559 3,112 5,618 5.6 2.2
76.5 — 58.1 1.4 0.8
56.2 — 52.8 4.2 0.9
68.1 — 60.2 2.7 0.9
140.9 154.8 286.9 5.7 2.0
176.4 154.8 309.1 4.2 1.8
244.8 487.3 625.0 5.5 2.6
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FOREST PRODUCTS JOURNAL Vol. 64, No. 7 0
life. Structural products such as softwood (framing) lumber
and their nonwood substitutes tend to have the same useful
life of the structure, and LCI data are available for both of
these products. The estimated net carbon emission savings
for these secondary wood products would likely be even
larger, e.g., if we used LCI data for more comparable
nonwood flooring products.
Net carbon emission savings for wood products can differ
among regions because of differences in species composi-
tion, and thus density, which influences the amount of
drying energy and carbon emissions. However, these
differences result in minor differences in net carbon
emissions savings.
Our estimates of net carbon emission savings use an
attributional, current period accounting framework to
estimate the emission benefits associated with wood energy
carbon emissions and wood product carbon storage. If we
used an attributional or a consequential dynamic time
framework, the level of carbon emission benefits of wood
energy use and wood product carbon storage would have
been lower but with higher uncertainty. Regardless of the
framework used, these carbon emission benefits would still
offset gross wood product manufacturing emissions. In
addition, using wood products avoids using known energy-
intensive producers of GHGs.
Acknowledgments
The work upon which this publication is based was
funded in whole or in part through grant no. 10-DG-
11420004-087 awarded by the Wood Education and
Resource Center, Northeastern Area State and Private
Forestry, US Forest Service.
In accordance with federal law and US Department of
Agriculture policy, this institution is prohibited from
discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin,
sex, age or disability. To file a complaint of discrimination,
write USDA Director, Office of Civil Rights, Room 326-W,
Whitten Building, 1400 Independence Avenue SW, Wash-
ington, DC 20250-9410 or call 202-720-5964 (voice and
TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and
employer.
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