Cradle to Gate Life Cycle Assessment of Laminated Veneer Lumber Production from the Pacific Northwest

1 Background CORRIM, the Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials, has conducted life cycle inventory (LCI) for major wood products and wood production regions in the United States. The life cycle inventory data cover from forest regeneration through to final product at the mill gate. Research has covered nine major forest products including both structural and nonstructural uses and four major regions: in this report we focus on laminated veneer lumber (LVL) produced in the US Pacific Northwest (PNW) region. The PNW regional data is a representative cross-section of forest growth and manufacturing processes in western Washington and Oregon. This document updates the current wood product LCI’s from a gate to gate to a cradle to gate LCI. Updates include the addition of PNW forestry operations, boiler, resin, and electrical grid data that have been developed since the original mill surveys were conducted during 1999 and 2000. The updated LCI data were used to conduct life cycle impact assessments (LCIA) using the North American impact method, TRACI 2 (Simapro version 4.0)(Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and Other Environmental Impacts) (Bare et al. 2011). These updates are necessary for the development of environmental product declarations (EPD) which will be based on this document. This document originates from the CORRIM LCI reports by Wilson and Dancer (2004, 2005) and Johnson et al. (2005). Updates in this report from the original Wilson and Dancer (2004) report include: North American resin data (Wilson 2009), wood combustion boiler updates, and electricity grid updates (Goemans 2010), with results expressed per unit of final product (1 m 3 laminated veneer lumber), and an LCIA. Updates to veneer production fall under the “Cradle to gate life cycle assessment of softwood plywood from the Pacific Northwest” report (Puettmann et al. 2012). Updates to the forestry operations report include electricity grid updates and an LCIA using the TRACI method. This report follows data and reporting requirements as outlined in the Product Category Rules (PCR) for North American Structural and Architectural Wood Products (PCR 2011) that will provide the guidance for preparation of North American wood product EPD. This report does not include comparative assertions.