A first Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of roundwood production in Germany was conducted in the Institute for Economics of the Federal Research Centre for Forestry and Forest Products. Based on the methodological approaches discussed in the process of international standardisation, differentiated results of Life Cycle Inventory and Life Cycle Assessment of roundwood production in Germany have been elaborated. The main goal of this study was to close the lack of LCA-specific data concerning roundwood production in Germany and to create a data basis for further LCAs in the field of forest industry in Germany. The roundwood production process has been splitted into two systems in order to handle its complexity. The first system covers the biological process of roundwood production whereas the technical production processes are the subject of the second system. The focus of this analysis is on the technical processes of roundwood production. For the biological process only rough estimates were developed. A transformed photosynthesis equation shows the energy and material flows of wood synthesis. Although this is a first attempt only, some advantages of roundwood compared to other raw materials could be quantified. This becomes evident when looking at energy inputs and - outputs as well as the CO2 balance. The input of fossil energy for roundwood production is extremely low in comparison with the input of solar energy which is necessary for the synthesis of wood. And the output of CO2 is almost neglectable against the amount of CO2 extracted from the atmosphere and stored in wood. Therefore wood, unique for a raw material, has a negative Global Warming Potential. With this study a basis for comparisons with other raw materials as well as for further Life Cycle Analyses of forest products was created.
0 (Wald, Forstwirtschaft und Verwendung der Forstprodukte) 907 (Indirekte Bedeutung der Wälder (Wohlfahrtswirkungen). Natur- und Umweltschutz) 652.9 (Verschiedenes) [430] (Deutschland, 1990-)
