Evaluation of the climate change mitigation potential of Canadian forest products

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In recent years, the forest sector has undergone a decline, which is leading to its transformation through the development of new products and processes. The current climate change context is also driving this transformation since forest products are often claimed to be preferred alternatives to non-renewable materials, chemicals, and energy sources. Therefore, an increasing number of policies and programs aim to promote their use, as well as the development of new products and processes. Government and industry need robust quantification tools to help them identify the most efficient measures to reach greenhouse gas emission reduction targets while revitalizing the forest sector. The life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology could be used for such a purpose as it allows comparing the impact on climate change, and on other environmental issues, resulting from different alternatives having the same function. However, recent literature has shown that serious limitations regarding LCAs conducted on forest products jeopardize decisions taken from these studies.The underlying research hypothesis of this proposal is that an enhanced consequential LCA approach that consistently considers biogenic carbon and improved climate change indicators will enable government and industry to compare the climate mitigation potential of various initiatives in the forest sector. The main goal of this research program is thus to develop a consequential LCA framework addressing the limitations identified in recent literature. To reach this goal, specific objectives are: 1) to develop a biogenic carbon accounting method for forest product LCAs, 2) to identify and adapt climate change indicators that better account for impacts associated with forest products, 3) to integrate forest products and competing materials into the TIMES-Canada model, and 4) to validate the consequential LCA approach by integrating the knowledge developed through the three first specific objectives and applying it to a case study comparing the climate change mitigation potential of different Canadian forest products. In the long run, this research will provide comprehensive and consistent tools to help regulators and the transforming industry defining the best strategies for climate change mitigation using forest products, and identifying conditions for profitability (e.g. carbon market, subsidies) as well as potential barriers (e.g. resource availability, natural disturbances).