Published Date 1 February 2016, Vol.113:596–605,doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.11.091
Title
Main factors influencing greenhouse gas emissions of wood-based furniture industry in Finland
Author
Lauri Linkosalmi,
Roope Husgafvel
Anna Fomkin
Hilppa Junnikkala
Tiina Witikkala
Matti Kairi
Olli Dahl
Aalto University, School of Chemical Technology, Department of Forest Products Technology, P.O. Box 16300, FI-02150 Espoo, Finland
Received 12 February 2015. Revised 20 July 2015. Accepted 28 November 2015. Available online 17 December 2015.
Highlights
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In furniture manufacturing raw materials have biggest impact on GHG emissions.
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Energy consumption of coating process should be improvement.
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Furniture manufacturing complexity creates challenges for life-cycle assessment.
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Availability and access to environmental data need to be improved.
Abstract
The significance of green values is growing in the furniture sector; customers are demanding more specific environmental information of the products, new regulations are tackling to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Life-cycle assessment is an important tool for better understanding, awareness and communication of environmental issues. It can also help to develop more energy and resource efficient production processes contributing to overall improvement of environmental performance of products. The main objective of this study was to assess greenhouse gas emissions of different furniture. Eight different furniture manufacturing processes were assessed to identify main factors that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Life-cycle assessment software was used to assess cradle to gate impacts of manufacturing processes. Case study results shows that materials have a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions of products (38–90 per cent). Processing and assembling can also have impact on greenhouse gas emissions (8–58 per cent); packaging and transportation have a minor role (1–8 per cent). Our results indicate that the environmental impacts of products can be reduced by influencing the materials selection and energy generation systems. Energy from renewable and biogenic energy resources can reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly in all production stages.
bDepartment of Material Science and Metallurgical Engineering, University of Oviedo, Calle Independencia 13, Oviedo 33004, Spain
cDepartment of Construction and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Oviedo, Campus de Gijón, Gijón 33203, Spain
Received 27 April 2015. Revised 16 September 2015. Accepted 18 October 2015. Available online 4 November 2015.
Highlights
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We improved Annex C1, ETAG 016-Part 1: flexural testing, two spans, uniform load.
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This procedure was checked on four of the main types of wood-based sandwich panel.
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The comparison with analytical models was made, and uncertainties were estimated.
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EOTA TR 019-A3 is not considering properly the thicknesses of the faces.
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Should be avoided taking data from literature, for being used in analytical models.
Abstract
This work presents a detailed procedure for flexural testing, on two spans, of simply supported full wood-based sandwich panel subject to uniform load. This procedure improves the test described sparsely in the Annex C1 of EOTA-ETAG 016-Part 1: Guideline for European Technical Approval of Self-supporting Composite Lightweight Panels.
To show the validity of the method, several tests were carried out in accordance with this procedure and the results were compared with analytical models. It was observed that the analytical models fit the experimental results with different accuracy on the prediction of the load at maximum allowed deflection, provided that the mechanical parameters of the constituent materials of sandwich panel are known accurately.
It was also found that, in this type of sandwich panel, the thicknesses of the faces are not negligible, and therefore the shear stiffness of the sandwich should not be simplified in the equations.
Additionally, it is included a simple method to estimate the uncertainties of some of the outcomes obtained in the test.
Since many decades, Malaysia has been recognized as a major supplier of tropical wood products in the world. Malaysia has exported wood products to all the regions in the world mainly to Asia, Europe, Middle East, Oceania (New Zealand and Australia), America and Africa. Traditionally, Europe has been the favorite market for Malaysia after Asia. In 2008, Asia market (about 54%) constitutes the highest percentage of the Malaysia total wood export value and followed by Europe (12%). Among the European market, Western Europe received the highest exports of wood product value from Malaysia (47% of the total European market). The biggest export markets are Netherlands, Belgium, France, United Kingdom and Germany. In 2008, the export value to Europe was USD 586,925,586. Despite that, in 2013 we expected that it will decline to 503,000,000 USD. The total trade value of Malaysian wood products in the European region is expected to decline about 14% compared to 2008.
