Hardwood Floors August/September 2018

Source: Bergman et al. 2014

referred to as a “gate-to-gate” assessment. In simpli ed terms, LCIs measure all the rawmaterial and energy inputs and environmental outputs to manufacture a particular product. It is typical for wood products for the production life-cycle stage to have the greatest life-cycle impacts, and have been the focus of previous analyses in the United States. In addition, the environmental information identi ed from these analyses would have the greatest e ect on reducing overall life- cycle impacts for the products themselves. Because there are two types of wood

harvest and transport of that tree to the sawmill; transportation of the lumber to the ooring mill; and the processing of that lumber into a serviceable ooring product ready for transport, distribution, installation, use, maintenance, repair, and disposal or recycling. A substantial part of a life cycle analysis is a life cycle inventory (LCI). Conducting an LCI is part of the science-based approach to addressing environmental claims for products and counter green-washing. LCIs include environmental and energy costs by analyzing life-cycle stages such as resource extraction, transportation, primary and secondary processing, nal product use, maintenance, and nal disposal. For an individual life-cycle stage, this is o en

Products considered to be environmentally friendly are o en referred to as being “green.” For a product to be considered environmentally friendly there must be defensible scienti c evidence to support this claim. A popular approach is to conduct a life cycle analysis of the product. A life cycle analysis is an internationally accepted technique used to assess the environmental impacts associated with a speci c product or process. e analysis conducted for a product’s entire life cycle is o en referred to as a cradle-to-grave (i.e., nature-to-nature) assessment. For wood oors, this includes capturing data for the following elements: the tree sapling sprouting from the forest oor; the maturing of that tree; the

oors, and each is manufactured di erently, two distinct life-cycle

inventories must be conducted: one for solid wood oors, and one for engineered wood oors.

the magazine of the national wood flooring association

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