Abstract:

Climate change is an important aspect of global governance, assessing greenhouse gas emissions from human activities is key to address climate change, which has gained more and more attention by governments, scientific research institutions and enterprises all over the world. China has proposed a goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality (“double carbon” goal). In this context, as a measure of greenhouse gas emissions, carbon footprint is becoming increasingly important. Evaluating the carbon footprint of wood and bamboo products is very important for China's wood and bamboo processing enterprises to implement the national“double carbon”goal, which plays an important role in promoting low-carbon and high-quality development. Research status of carbon footprint evaluation for sawn lumber, modified wood, wood-based panels and their products, glued laminated timber, cross laminated timber, and other wood and bamboo products were summarized. And the recent progress of evaluation methods was also analyzed. At present, life cycle assessment method is widely used to assess carbon footprint of wood and bamboo products globally. The standards for carbon footprint assessment are mainly ISO/TS 14067, GHG Protocol and PAS 2050. There is no international consensus on the assessment methods of biological carbon storage and its delayed carbon emission in wood and bamboo products, as well as the content of carbon footprint evaluation results. Due to the differences in wood and bamboo processing technology of different countries, the carbon footprint assessment results of the same product are significantly different. In addition, researchers often use different standards and hypotheses in carbon footprint evaluation, resulting in low comparability of the results for same product. Finally, we put forward four research topics which should be solved in the future: 1) In-depth study on the accounting methodologies of biological carbon storage and its delayed carbon emission to scientifically quantify the positive contribution of wood and bamboo products to climate change mitigation. 2) The formulation of international unified product category rules which is suitable for carbon footprint evaluation of wood and bamboo products, to further enhance the comparability of carbon footprint accounting results and promote the international mutual recognition of the results. 3) The establishment of a tracking system for the whole life cycle of wood and bamboo products is urgently needed to provide reference for the full life cycle carbon footprint assessment of wood and bamboo products. 4) Building a nationwide unified carbon emission factor database for China wood and bamboo industry, in order to provide fundamental data support for accurately measuring the carbon footprint of wood and bamboo products.

Key words: carbon footprint, life cycle, carbon storage, wood-based products, bamboo products