Development of equitable guidelines for sustainable construction with wood
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As an environmentally favorable resource, wood plays an important role when aiming to develop sustainable buildings. It is renewable and sequesters and stores carbon from the atmosphere, thereby contributing to mitigation of climate change. However, these characteristics are up to now not incorporated sufficiently in most building certification schemes. The life cycle assessments (LCA) which are the foundation for the certification and labeling of new buildings assume an incineration for energy production of wooden building components at their end-of-life. Possible benefits associated with the option of one or more times of material recycling preceding the energy production (“cascading”) are not taken into account. The project aims to assess these benefits by conducting LCA studies of a cascading use of recovered wood from the building sector. Options to integrate cascading as a regular end-of-life option in LCAs of wood products will be developed and evaluated. Ultimately, recommendation for an optimized application of wood in buildings will be derived. |
| Duration | January 2012 - December 2014 |
| People | Höglmeier, Karin; Richter, Klaus Weber-Blaschke, Gabriele |
| Funding | Bavarian State Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry |
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