Life Cycle Assessment of the Oriented Strand Board and Plywood Industries in the United States of America

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology to compare and evaluate products or systems in a holistic manner. The methodology of an LCA includes the life cycle inventory (LCI), which contains inputs and outputs for a product within designated system boundaries. LCIs are used to develop impact assessments that calculate the effect of the product or system on the environment in categories such as global warming potential.

LCA has been applied for the comparison of wood products to non-wood alternatives. The results showed that wood processing is efficient and the environmental impacts are low compared to non-wood alternatives. These findings are beginning to be documented and promoted in standardized environmental product declarations (EPDs) that summarize the LCA and can be used for comparisons of different products. In order to produce up-to-date EPDs for the production of structural plywood and oriented strand board (OSB) in the U.S., updated LCI data are needed.

This study presents the collection and preparation of the LCI data for structural plywood and OSB produced in the U.S. The collected data are representative for the production year 2012 and will contribute to the update of the environmental product declaration (EPD) for both products.

In addition the quality of the collected data sets will be assessed by descriptive statistical tools. The used methods should display the necessity of standardizing and describing the data sets, which were the basis for the calculation of industry-wide average values.

A comparison with previous studies and the discussions with experts from the industries revealed trends over time in the context of environmental impacts.