Reducing the environmental footprint of interior wood doors in non-residential buildings - part 2 : ecodesign

Ecodesign is a concept that emerged few decades ago as a response to the larger concept of sustainable development. Multiple tools exist to address ecodesign. Life Cycle Assessment, a comprehensive, robust and recognized evaluation tool, enables to identify the product environmental profile. Based on previous LCA results on interior wood doors, this paper aims at proposing an ecodesign strategy based on the generation and evaluation of alternative scenarios. The three selected targets for environmental improvement are particleboard components, transportation and end-of-life. For the particleboard manufacturing, the use of adhesives based on bio-sourced resources was not very conclusive, except for the use of pine tannins in panel manufacture that showed promising results. Concerning transportation issues, switching from road to rail transportation, as well as having a local supplier, decreased the overall environmental impact of the door. The most notable alternative was the end-of-life recycling scenario. The reutilization of the door core in the door manufacturing process proved a great benefit due to the avoidance of new raw materials production. Developing services around door recovery and remanufacturing seems promising in reducing doors environmental impacts. This scenario would be readily viable and realistic

The environmental footprint of interior wood doors in non-residential buildings. part 1, Life cycle assessment

Integrating environmental aspects into industrial practices has become a necessity. In fact, climate change and resource depletion have been established scientifically and can no more be neglected. Life Cycle Assessment is acknowledged to be an efficient tool to establish a product environmental profile and can be useful to businesses wishing to analyze their environmental record. Decreasing a building environmental footprint implies, among other considerations, a proper choice of building materials, both structural and architectural. A good avenue would be to select low environmental impact materials from cradle-to-grave. Architectural wooden doors are often specified in non-residential buildings in North America. However, only one Life Cycle Assessment has been carried out on wooden doors. This study explores the cradle-to-grave environmental profile of an interior wood door in a North American context. According to the results, the main contributor to the product impacts is the production of raw materials, especially the particleboard component, and their transportation to the manufacturing plant. The urea formaldehyde production is the main reason for particleboard impacts among the three damage categories, human health, climate change and resources, of IMPACT 2002þ. The other life cycle stages that have a noticeable influence on the door environmental impacts are shipping and end-of-life. Transportation as a whole affected the system total environmental score. The current results could serve as a basis for ecodesign implementation

Écoconception des produits d'apparence en bois pour la construction non-résidentielle

L’objectif général de cette recherche est de permettre le positionnement des produits d’apparence en bois dans la construction non résidentielle en misant sur la conception de produits à faible trace environnementale, et ainsi permettre aux entreprises manufacturières d’être plus compétitives en épousant la dynamique du marché et des réglementations de plus en plus exigeantes favorisant des produits plus respectueux de l’environnement. De manière plus spécifique, les objectifs sont : de développer une meilleure compréhension des impacts environnementaux liés aux produits d’apparence en bois en analysant les certifications environnementales et écolabels existants; d’utiliser l’approche analyse du cycle de vie (ACV) afin d’identifier le profil environnemental du produit d’apparence le plus spécifié en construction non-résidentielle et de proposer, dans une démarche d’écoconception, des scénarios alternatifs qui permettent d’en améliorer la trace environnementale; et finalement, en se basant sur les résultats de l’étude de cas, d’extrapoler les résultats obtenus à l’ensemble des produits d’apparence en bois pour la construction non-résidentielle. Un peu moins d’une vingtaine d’étiquettes environnementales de type I applicable aux produits d’apparence en bois a été identifiée. Ces étiquettes ont pu être classées en quatre groupes. La littérature scientifique nous montre que l’approche globale, qui est de prendre en compte l’ensemble des étapes du cycle de vie du produit, et l’approche multicritère, qui est de considérer l’ensemble des catégories d’impacts environnementaux, sont indispensables pour évaluer la responsabilité environnementale d’un produit. L’étude de cas a permis de constater que les matières premières utilisées dans la fabrication des portes, en particulier le panneau de particules, contribuaient pour plus de 60% à l’impact environnemental total du produit, suivies par la fin de vie du produit (enfouissement) et la distribution. Des scénarios d’écoconception ont été élaborés autour des étapes du cycle de vie ayant le plus d’impacts environnementaux : les matières premières, la fin de vie et le transport. L’extrapolation des résultats a permis de constater que les matières premières avait une haute contribution à l’impact total des produits d’apparence en bois et que des décisions devaient être prises en fonction du type de bois utilisé (bois composite ou bois solide et placage).The main goal of this research was to help positioning appearance wood products in non-residential construction by investing in environmental design. By adopting market dynamics and regulations towards environmentally preferable products, manufacturers of secondary forest products will become more competitive. More specifically, the objectives of this thesis is to acquire greater knowledge of environmental implications of appearance wood products by analyzing current environmental certifications and labeling; to use a life cycle approach to identify the environmental profile of the most specified appearance wood products in non-residential constructions with life cycle analysis; to reduce their environmental footprint through ecodesign; and finally to generalize resulting observations about doors to all other appearance wood products to improve their ecodesign. About twenty type I ecolabels applicable to appearance wood products have been identified. Those labels have then been classified into four groups. Scientific literature shows that a comprehensive approach, that is taking into account all product life cycle stages, and multi criteria approach, that is considering all environmental impact categories, are essential to evaluate the environmental friendliness of a product. The case study permitted to observe that raw materials used for door production, in particular the particleboard, were responsible for 60% of total environmental impacts of the door, followed by product end-of-life (landfilling) and shipping. Ecodesign scenarios were developed according to those contributive life cycle stages : raw materials, end-of-life and transportation. The generalization of the door LCA results and ecodesign propositions to the entire appearance wood product family showed that raw materials still had a high contribution to products total environmental impacts and that decisions should be accordling to the type of wood used during the manufacture (wood composite or solid wood and veneer)

Cellulose Nanocomposites by Melt Compounding of TEMPO-Treated Wood Fibers in Thermoplastic Starch Matrix

To facilitate melt compounding of cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) based composites, wood pulp fibers were subjected to a chemical treatment whereby the fibers were oxidized using 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl radical (TEMPO). This treatment introduced negatively charged carboxylate groups to the fibers. TEMPO-treated fibers (TempoF) were added to a mixture of amylopectin starch, glycerol, and water. Granules were prepared from this mixture and processed into CNF composites by extrusion. TempoF were easier to process into composites as compared with non-treated pulp fibers (PF). SEM revealed partial disintegration of TempoF during melt processing. Consequently, TempoF gave composites with much better mechanical properties than those of conventional composites prepared from pulp fibers and TPS. Particularly, at 20 wt% TempoF content in the composite, the modulus and strength were much improved. Such a continuous melt processing route, as an alternative to laboratory solvent casting techniques, may promote large-scale production of CNF-based composites as an environmentally friendly alternative to synthetic plastics/composites

Using life cycle thinking to analyze environmental labeling : the case of appearance wood products

Purpose: Growing public concern about the current state of our planet led to the creation of numerous regulations, standards, and certifications for the protection of humans and the environment. Ecolabels were defined for products such as cleaning products, paints, and many others. Wood building products are no exception. The objective of this study is to analyze the existing ecolabelling programs for appearance wood products in nonresidential applications and to evaluate them relatively to their effective role in environment protection or reduction of environment footprint. Methods: The research was conducted on the most common International Organization for Standardization (ISO) type I ecolabels in North America, the European Union, and Japan. Certification schemes applicable to appearance wood products for nonresidential applications were considered. In a life cycle assessment perspective, certification criteria were compared regarding their ability to consider and integrate environment impacts. Results and discussion: A wide range of ecolabels can apply to appearance wood products, from indoor air quality to wood from sustainable forest management. Moreover, it has been found that among all certification schemes studied, those integrating the whole life cycle were the most relevant. Conclusions: The remaining limitation of ISO type I ecolabels is the lack of environmental information enabling the differentiation between products bearing the same ecolabel. This can be overcome by ISO type III environmental product declarations. Thus, allowing a better understanding of the implications related with the use of wood products compared to other materials in the nonresidential building sector

Prospects for appearance wood products ecodesign in the context of nonresidential applications

As environmental awareness grows, societal demand for more environmentally friendly products increases. Demand for environmental responsibility also reached the building material and construction sector. Green building has become more widespread over the past decade and can be considered a challenge for specifiers and building products manufacturers. Ecodesign, an application of the sustainable development concept, is one of the available tools to address this challenge. This article aims at proposing an ecodesign pathway for appearance wood products in the nonresidential building sector. Through extrapolating results from a previous interior wood door case study, it has been possible to obtain environmental profiles for the main segments of the appearance wood products family for nonresidential buildings. These profiles have allowed devising ecodesign solutions. Results show that for this whole family of products, raw materials are what cause the most environmental impacts, followed by shipping and end-of-life stages. Product component weight tends also to influence the environmental profile. Ecodesign solutions for composite-based products are strongly related to decreasing the composite component weight by design and remanufacturing. For solid wood–based products, ecodesign can be approached through remanufacturing or reclaiming, using locally certified sustainable wood. The use of hardwood waste may be available for energy purposes, but this may not be as relevant as reuse and recycle in the context of the province of Quebec energy grid mix