Sustainability imperatives are starting to drive business decisions and government policies. As solutions are sought to developing environmental assessments, it is important to know how much energy, water or chemical has gone into manufacturing a product, and what greenhouse gas emissions or other emissions to the environment have been released in the process. The first national rigorous Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) of representative Australian forestry and wood products and processes was developed by CSIRO to allow the environmental impacts of the production of common timber products and systems to be quantified and evaluated from ‘cradle-to-gate’.
This paper outlines the development of the Life Cycle Inventory of Australian forestry and wood products and provides some results and benefits.