Wood product carbon substitution benefits: a critical review of assumptions

作者：Christina Howard, Caren Christine Dymond, Verena C. Griess, Darius Tolkien-Spurr, Gerrit Cornelis van Kooten · 发表于：Carbon Balance and Management · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1186/s13021-021-00171-w · 被引用次数：118 · 研究领域：Forest Management and Policy、Environmental Impact and Sustainability、Wood Treatment and Properties

BACKGROUND: There are high estimates of the potential climate change mitigation opportunity of using wood products. A significant part of those estimates depends on long-lived wood products in the construction sector replacing concrete, steel, and other non-renewable goods. Often the climate change mitigation benefits of this substitution are presented and quantified in the form of displacement factors. A displacement factor is numerically quantified as the reduction in emissions achieved per unit of wood used, representing the efficiency of biomass in decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. The substitution benefit for a given wood use scenario is then represented as the estimated change in emissions from baseline in a study's modelling framework. The purpose of this review is to identify and assess the central economic and technical assumptions underlying forest carbon accounting and life cycle assessments that use displacement factors or similar simple methods. MAIN TEXT: Four assumptions in the way displacement factors are employed are analyzed: (1) changes in harvest or production rates will lead to a corresponding change in consumption of wood products, (2) wood building products are substitutable for concrete and steel, (3) the same mix of products could be produced from increased harvest rates, and (4) there are no market responses to increased wood use. CONCLUSIONS: After outlining these assumptions, we conclude suggesting that many studies assessing forest management o...