Browsing by Author "Haaparanta, Leena Katariina"

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Life cycle assessment of plywood process - Carbon footprint of two plywood products
(2011) Haaparanta, Leena Katariina
School of Chemical Engineering | Master's thesis
The significance of green values is growing and customers are demanding environmentally friendly products. Life cycle assessment is a tool for the better understanding, awareness and communication of environmental issues. The main objective of this thesis was to calculate the carbon footprint for two plywood products. The system boundary of the assessment has been done in accordance with the "cradle-to-gate" approach. This approach includes raw material extraction, the manufacturing processes of the plywood and other raw materials as well as their transportation to the plywood mill. The analysis ends when the finished product is packaged and ready for dispatch to the customer. The period under the study was the calendar year 2010. The calculations have been made using GaBi -software. CO₂ fixation has been excluded from the experimental part but it is reviewed in literature part. The literature part includes plywood, life cycle assessment, climate change and carbon footprint reviews. The carbon footprint relates to impact category "climate change" and it is a greenhouse gas indicator. The carbon footprint reveals how much CO₂-equivalent (CO₂e) emission is caused by a product during its life cycle, in this study from cradle-to-gate. Greenhouse gases, according to Kyoto Protocol, are converted to CO₂e by characteristic factors defined by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Impact category result is expressed in CO₂e per selected functional unit of a product, in this case one cubic meter of plywood. Under the assessment two New Size -format plywood products were studied. These were 9 mm thick and manufactured from birch (Betula pendula). The density of the finished plywood is approximately 680 kg/m³ and the moisture content is 7-12 %. Allocation method is mass based and thus the results are for one cubic meter of plywood. KoskiStandard is uncoated plywood and its carbon footprint is 157 kg CO₂e. The carbon footprint of coated KoskiCrown is 231 kg CO₂e. Sensitive analysis shows that these values vary by not more than 10 %.