The outer facade constitutes a substantial volume of the total consumption of materials used in a building and the need for maintenance of the facade makes it especially interesting from a life cycle perspective. The range of wooden materials and products used for facades has different impacts over the life cycle, but the analysis so far have not included a time-adjusted global warming potential. Wooden facade materials including untreated Scots pine, coated Norway spruce, oil/copper-organic preservative treated Scots pine, thermally modified Scots pine, furfurylated Scots pine and acetylated Radiata pine were assessed with respect to their life cycle greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) based on the environmental product declarations (EPD) and adjusted according to EN 15804. The results showed low impacts of untreated Scots pine (≈1 kg CO2-eq. per m2), medium for thermally modified Scots pine, coated Norway spruce and oil/copper-organic preservative treated Scots pine (1-5 kg CO2-eq. per m2) and high for furfurylated Scots pine and acetylated Radiata pine (5-10 kg CO2-eq. per m2). Different methods to include time-adjustment of GHG emissions were then applied to explore the importance of time-adjustment. The magnitude of the results of time-adjustments suggests that this should be included and a prioritised area of EPD method development.
Keywords: Life cycle assessment, global warming potential, wooden façade materials, service life planning
Authors
Tellnes L.G.F.
Department of Material and Processes, Norwegian Institute of Wood Technology, Oslo
Gobakken L.R.
Department of Technology, Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute, ÅS
Flæte P.O.
Department of Material and Processes, Norwegian Institute of Wood Technology, Oslo
Alfredsen G.
Department of Technology, Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute, ÅS
Login to download the PDF