Life-cycle inventory and assessment research 

at the Forest Products Laboratory:

Wood products used in building construction

Our mission

We use science and technology 

to conserve and extend our 

Nation’s forest resources. 

For almost 100 years, our 

mission has been to use our 

Nation’s wood resources 

wisely and efficiently, while 

at the same time keeping 

our forests healthy. Many 

breakthrough technologies 

that influence the way we 

live started at the Forest 

Products Laboratory (FPL).

Our role and experience

Established in 1910 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest 

Service, the FPL in Madison, Wisconsin, serves the public as the Nation’s 

leading wood research institute. The FPL is recognized both nationally 

and internationally as an unbiased technical authority on wood science 

and use. Our research is concentrated in one location to promote an 

interdisciplinary approach to problem solving. The FPL cooperates 

with many universities, industries, and federal and state agencies.

Our areas of expertise

Today, more than 201 scientists and support staff conduct 

research on expanded and diverse aspects of wood use. Research 

concentrates on pulp and paper products, housing and structural 

uses of wood, wood preservation, wood and fungi identification, 

and finishing and restoration of wood products. 

In addition to traditional lines of research, FPL is responding to 

environmental pressures on the forest resource by using cuttingedge techniques to meet important future challenges:

•Utilization of small-diameter timber

•Nanotechnology

•Biorefinery/bioenergy

•Advanced wood structures

•Advanced composites

USDA Forest Service

Forest Products Laboratory

One Gifford Pinchot Drive

Madison, WI 53726–2398

608–231–9200

608–231–9592 (fax)

608–231–9544 (TTY)

www.fpl.fs.fed.us

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and 

activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, and where applicable, sex, 

marital status, familial status, parental status, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, 

political beliefs, reprisal, or because all or a part of an individual’s income is derived from 

any public assistance program. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with 

disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, 

large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s TARGET Center at (202) 720–2600 (voice 

and TDD). To file a complaint of discrimination, write to USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 

1400 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20250–9410, or call (800) 795–3272 (voice) 

or (202) 720–6382 (TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

March 2010

Forest Products Laboratory

Air, Water,

and

Land Quality
Environmental performance index

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Wood Steel

Solid waste

Water emission index

Air emission index

Global warming potential

Embodied energy

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Solid waste

Water emission index

Air emission index

Global warming potential

Embodied energy

Wood Concrete

The purpose of life-cycle research is to determine the environmental burdens—air emissions, water 

emissions, and land emissions—associated with production and use of particular products. Final 

measurements of life-cycle environmental performance are units of environmental burden per unit 

of product produced (for example, 

kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions 

per cubic meter of softwood plywood).

Life-cycle research at the Forest 

Products Laboratory (FPL) focuses 

on wood products used in building 

construction and is conducted in 

collaboration with the Consortium 

on Research for Renewable Industrial 

Materials (CORRIM) (www.corrim.

org). CORRIM is a group of researchers 

from more than a dozen organizations, 

including universities and both 

government and private research 

laboratories. 

Six life-cycle stages, often called lifecycle inventories (LCIs), exist for wood 

used in building construction—from 

forest management (regeneration), 

through product production and use in 

buildings, to final disposal in landfills. A 

life-cycle assessment (LCA) uses outputs 

from the individual LCIs to estimate 

aggregate environmental impacts such 

as global warming potential. 

CORRIM and FPL are collaborating 

to develop LCI data for a range of 

wood products produced in several 

regions of the United States (such as 

softwood lumber produced in the Pacific 

Northwest (PNW), Southeast (SE), and Northeast). The data are stored in a national LCI database 

(www.nrel.gov/lci) that is managed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. This database, 

available for all to use, contains LCI information on a wide range of wood and non-wood products.

A “gate-to-gate” LCI is the study of a single life-cycle stage, such as hardwood lumber production.1 

“Gate in” has logs entering the sawmill; “gate out” has planed dry lumber leaving the sawmill. LCI 

information for forest regeneration, wood harvesting, and wood transportation are added to produce 

a “cradle-to-gate” LCI.

CORRIM prepared cradle-to-gate LCIs for softwood lumber, glulam beams, laminated veneer lumber 

(LVL), oriented strandboard (OSB), and softwood plywood produced in the PNW and SE regions of the 

United States.2

1Bergman, R.D.; Bowe, S.A. 2008. Environmental impact of producing hardwood lumber determined by life-cycle inventory. 

Wood and Fiber Science 40(3):448–458.

2Puettmann, M.E.; Wilson, J.B. 2005. Life-cycle analysis of wood products: Cradle-to-gate LCI of residential wood building 

materials. Wood and Fiber Science 37:18–29.

Life-cycle inventory and assessment research 

at the Forest Products Laboratory:

Wood products used in building construction

3Lippke, B.; Wilson, J.; Perez-Garcia, J.; Bowyer, J.; Meil, J. 2004. CORRIM: Life-cycle environmental performance of renewable 

building materials. Forest Products Journal 54(6):7–19.

4ATHENA Sustainable Materials Institute, Ottawa, Canada, is a cooperator with CORRIM and provided the Impact Estimator, a 

commercially available software for simulating building construction to generate LCI and environmental measures.

A life-cycle assessment comparing houses made with 

wood, steel, and concrete frames was completed using the 

environmental outputs from completed cradle-to-gate 

LCIs.3 

Typical houses for Atlanta and Minneapolis were 

evaluated. For Atlanta, wood framing was compared with 

concrete framing. For Minneapolis, wood framing was 

compared with steel framing. 

The Impact Estimator (IE), developed by the ATHENA 

Institute,4 prepared the LCAs using product LCIs. 

The IE simulated the construction of the 

Atlanta and Minneapolis scenarios using 

alternative materials and estimated the 

environmental burdens for each house. 

All the houses use both wood and nonwood products in their structure. 

The IE provides five environmental 

performance indices: 

(1) embodied energy, 

(2) global warming potential, 

(3) air emissions index, 

(4) water emissions index, and 

(5) solid waste.

Life-cycle assessment

Wood compared with other non-wood building materials

Environmental performance 

indices show that wood-framed 

structures generally have less 

impact than concrete- or steelframed structures. 

These results indicate that the 

environmental performance of 

housing as measured by these 

indices could be improved by 

building more wood-framed 

structures and redesigning 

houses to incorporate more 

wood building materials.

Typical house in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Source: Danielle F. De Tennis.

Typical house in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Source: Danielle F. De Tennis.

Atlanta Minneapolis

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The six life-cycle stages of wood 

building materials.

Gate out

Product manufacturing

Gate in

Forest management 

(regeneration)

Harvesting

Building construction

Use/maintenance

Reuse/recycle/landfill

[transportation]

[transportation]

[transportation]

[transportation]

[transportation]

[transportation]

Materials

Coproducts

Products

Air 

emissions

Water 

emissions

Land 

emissions

Water

Energy

Cradle
Impact on land quality from making wood building materials

Solid waste is one type of 

environmental output to land for 

various products. Other types of 

land emissions include inorganic 

material and wood, which 

includes paper/board packaging. 

Recycled material is also tracked. 

Similar to CO2-e (air) and BOD 

(water), solid waste for the SE 

is higher for all wood building 

materials in comparison to 

corresponding material from the 

PNW. The SE tends to burn more 

biomass on-site for boiler fuel, 

thus generating more ash that 

requires disposal. Consistent 

with this observation, the SE 

generates more biomass CO2 

than does the PNW for each 

building material. Furthermore, 

PNW green softwood lumber 

generates roughly 20% less solid waste than PNW kiln-dried softwood lumber. The only difference 

between the two products is PNW green softwood lumber is not kiln dried. Kiln drying typically 

requires a boiler for energy, and a boiler that burns wood generates ash.

Pacific Northwest Southeast

Impact on water quality from making wood building materials

Biological oxygen demand (BOD) 

is one measure of water emission 

impacts for various products. 

Other water emission impacts 

include dissolved solids, oil, 

suspended solids, and chemical 

oxygen demand. High BOD is an 

indicator of lower water quality. 

Softwood plywood production 

in the SE has the highest BOD, 

although all wood products 

consuming resin tend to have 

higher BOD values. Data are 

still being collected on plywood 

resins, and the estimates may be 

modified.

Impact on air quality from making wood building materials

Global warming potential 

(GWP), in CO2-equivalent 

(CO2-e) emissions per 

cubic meter of product, 

includes the effect of 

several greenhouse gases 

(GHGs) (carbon dioxide, 

methane, nitrous oxide, and 

others). Carbon dioxide is 

the largest contributor to 

GHG emissions and comes 

from burning both biomass 

and fossil fuels for energy. 

Manufacturing OSB in the SE 

has the largest GWP per cubic 

meter of all the products. 

Burning wood for energy, 

mostly for drying wood, is 

a notable source of GHG 

emissions. These emissions 

do not contribute to net GHG 

emissions as long as forests are capturing carbon faster than the emissions generated from burning 

wood. Manufacturing green softwood lumber in the PNW has the lowest effect because the lumber is 

not dried. The GHG emissions from SE products are greater than those from PNW products because 

half the electric power used in the SE comes from burning coal, whereas the PNW uses a higher 

percentage of hydroelectric power.

Life-cycle inventory data samples

Environmental impact of wood products produced for building construction 

in the Pacific Northwest and Southeast regions of the United States

Biological oxygen demand from making 

different wood building materials.

Global warming potential from making 

different wood building materials.

Solid waste sent to landfills from making 

different wood building materials.

House construction using wood building 

materials.

Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest

Southeast

Southeast

LVL

OSB

Glulam

Lumber

Plywood

LVL

Glulam

Plywood

Lumber (green)

Lumber

Biological oxygen demand

 (kg per m3 product)

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LVL

OSB

Glulam

Lumber

Plywood

LVL

Glulam

Plywood

Lumber (green)

Lumber

Solid waste to landll

 (m3 nal product)

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2 3 Global warming potential (kg CO2-e per m3 product)

LVL

OSB

Glulam

Lumber

Plywood

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Biomass CO2 Fossil CO2 Other CO2-e

LVL

Glulam

Plywood

Lumber (green)

Lumber
■ Determine environmental performance of current and new wood 

building materials 

■ Evaluate impact of substituting wood products for products generating 

more fossil emissions in production and use.

■ Aid in developing scientifically sound guidelines for evaluating 

environmental performance of alternative building designs

■ Evaluate environment performance of redesigned houses on a 

component-by-component basis

■ Assess environmental impact of producing biofuels (such as bioethanol 

and biodiesel) in comparison to transportation fuels (such as gasoline 

or diesel) 

■ Compare environmental impacts of disposing of wood after use 

(landfilling) to alternatives, such as reusing wood building materials.

Ongoing applications of life-cycle research

For more information, contact

Richard Bergman

Research Forest Products Technologist

Economics and Statistics Research

Forest Products Laboratory

(608) 231–9477

rbergman@fs.fed.us

Kenneth Skog

Project Leader

Economics and Statistics Research

Forest Products Laboratory

(608) 231–9360

kskog@fs.fed.us

Stephen Kelley

President, CORRIM

Professor, North Carolina State University

(919) 515–5321

steve_kelley@ncsu.edu

5

Examples of wood products in building construction.