Life cycle inventory for currently harvested birch roundwood

Abstract

The knowledge of the environmental performance of different products and services is vital in the modern world because of the climate change and other environmental problems that we are facing. Life cycle assessment is a valuable tool that allows to determine the environmental performance and compare products and services with the same function. There is no doubt that the importance of forests is crucial in the environmental protection, despite that raw wood products (roundwood, pulpwood and fuelwood) are not carbon neutral as previously thought because of the human activities during forest management processes. Apart from climate change, production of raw wood products also contribute to other environmental impact categories: acidification, eutrophication, photochemical oxidant formation and abiotic resource depletion. Previous studies have shown that the life cycle inventory (LCI) data for raw wood products should be collected from the site-specific not from more generic sources because of the significant differences in several geography and technology related factors. However, less discussed are time-related factors, which should also be acknowledged especially because of the long growing time of trees. The main objective of the present study was to determine which forest management processes should be included in the LCI for currently harvested birch (Betula spp.) roundwood in Latvia and based on these results compile the required data for the LCI. The results of forest management history analysis showed that for currently produced birch roundwood only logging operations should be included in the system boundary. Subsystems such as seed production, seedling production and silvicultural operations were not practiced or had only minor impact due to low mechanization level in the past. By taking into account the time-related factors, the LCI was developed and can be used in further calculations of environmental impacts for different wood-based products that are manufactured from currently harvested birch roundwood