Status quo for life cycle inventory and environmental impact assessment of wood-based panel products in Germany

Considering the importance of the German wood-based panel industry, the current status of available life-cycle inventory (LCI) data for these products is quite unsatisfying. In this study, detailed disaggregated LCI and environmental life-cycle assessment (LCA) data and variation in data on production of the core products of the German wood-based panel sector are given. The data suit a wide range of applications and are transparently documented, allowing consistent combination with other raw data sets. The data are analyzed in terms of sensitivity of environmental impacts to the variations in LCI. Also, specific advice is given to LCA practitioners on how to narrow the presented variations with respect to the environmental impact category they are interested in. Results are presented for the typical midpoint environmental impact categories excluding toxicity indicators. For the latter, the relevant data gaps are discussed.