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Life Cycle Assessment of Cross-Laminated Timber Transportation from Three Origin Points

Author

Listed:
  • Mahboobeh Hemmati

    (Environmental Dynamics Ph.D. Program, Graduate School and International Education, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA)

  • Tahar Messadi

    (Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA)

  • Hongmei Gu

    (USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, WI 53726, USA)

Abstract

Cross-laminated timber (CLT) used in the U.S. is mainly imported from abroad. In the existing literature, however, there are data on domestic transportation, but little understanding exists about the environmental impacts from the CLT import. Most studies use travel distances to the site based on domestic supply origins. The new Adohi Hall building at the University of Arkansas campus, Fayetteville, AR, presents the opportunity to address the multimodal transportation with overseas origin, and to use real data gathered from transporters and manufacturers. The comparison targets the environmental impacts of CLT from an overseas transportation route (Austria-Fayetteville, AR) to two other local transportation lines. The global warming potential (GWP) impact, from various transportation systems, constitutes the assessment metric. The findings demonstrate that transportation by water results in the least greenhouse gas (GHG) emission compared with freight transportation by rail and road. Transportation by rail is the second most efficient, and by road the least environmentally efficient. On the other hand, the comparison of the life cycle assessment (LCA) tools, SimaPro (Ecoinvent database) and Tally (GaBi database), used in this research, indicate a remarkable difference in GWP characterization impact factors per tonne.km (tkm), primarily due to the different database used by each software.

Suggested Citation

  • Mahboobeh Hemmati & Tahar Messadi & Hongmei Gu, 2021. "Life Cycle Assessment of Cross-Laminated Timber Transportation from Three Origin Points," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(1), pages 1-17, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2021:i:1:p:336-:d:713586
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zhongjia Chen & Hongmei Gu & Richard D. Bergman & Shaobo Liang, 2020. "Comparative Life-Cycle Assessment of a High-Rise Mass Timber Building with an Equivalent Reinforced Concrete Alternative Using the Athena Impact Estimator for Buildings," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-15, June.
    2. Franz Dolezal & Isabella Dornigg & Markus Wurm & Hildegund Figl, 2021. "Overview and Main Findings for the Austrian Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-12, July.
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