Print Email Facebook Twitter The potential role of wood acetylation in climate change mitigation Title The potential role of wood acetylation in climate change mitigation Author Van der Lugt, P. Vogtländer, J.G. Alexander, J. Bongers, F. Stebbins, H. Faculty Industrial Design Engineering Department Industrial Design Date 2014-03-10 Abstract In a carbon footprint assessment, the greenhouse gas emissions during the life cycle of a material can be measured, and compared to alternative products in terms of kg CO2 equivalent. If applied correctly, wood acetylation opens up a range of new innovative applications in which high performance yet carbon intensive non-renewable materials such as metals, plastics and concrete may be replaced by abundantly available nondurable wood species. To better understand the difference in greenhouse gas emissions of Accoya® wood (acetylated non-durable wood) and relevant alternative materials (steel, concrete, plastics, hardwood), this study first presents the emissions based on a cradle-to-gate scenario, thus including all emissions (sourcing, transport, processing, etc.) until the factory gate, for Accoya® wood based on the latest production figures for various suitable species. As the cradle-to-gate assessment excludes use-phase and endof- life related aspects such as material use, durability, maintenance, recycling scenarios and carbon sequestration, the second part of this study takes the production results as input for an assessment of the full life cycle (cradle-to-grave) with a typical window frame as unit of comparison. The results show that if lifespan considerations are included, Accoya® wood has a considerably lower carbon footprint than non-renewable materials and unsustainably sourced hardwood, and is competitive in terms of carbon footprint with sustainably sourced hardwood. Because of the limited emissions during production and carbon credits related to temporary carbon storage and bio-energy production during End of Life, all sustainably sourced wood alternatives, including Accoya® wood, are even CO2 negative over the full life cycle. The final part of this paper puts these outcomes in a global perspective and discusses the potential implications large scale acetylation could have in reducing greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Subject acetylated woodcarbon footprintclimate change mitigationgreen buildinggreenhouse gas emissions To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:e9a77f9e-0ce4-4683-a2e0-dcaf65527398 Source ECWM7: 7th European Conference on Wood Modification, Lisbon, Portugal, 10-12 March 2014 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type conference paper Rights (c) 2014 The Author(s) Files PDF 313889.pdf 228.08 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:e9a77f9e-0ce4-4683-a2e0-dcaf65527398/datastream/OBJ/view