Introduction to Life-Cycle Assessment and Decision Making Applied to Forest Biomaterials 177
Impact category
Weighting
factor (%)
Noncancerous 5
Smog formation 4
Acidification 3
Ozone depletion 2
5.4 LCA Tools for Forest Biomaterials
There are many tools developed in various software languages that are aimed at specific
aspects of LCA or examining an area of products. The focus of this book and chapter is
aimed at biomaterials; we review two tools that are commonly used to perform LCAs of
wood-based products and bio-fuels. These tools are thought to be robust, have ample
documentation, and a wide breadth of analysis scope that is useful to learning and
performing analyses in these areas.
5.4.1 FICAT
The Forest Industry Carbon Accounting
Tool (FICAT) produced by the National
Council for Air and Stream Improvement
(NCASI) is “a [free] user-friendly tool that
enables users to model the greenhouse gas
and carbon impacts of forest products sector projects, and to identify potential opportu-
nities for improvements.” (NCASI). The FICAT model programed by NCASI has several
tabs, as listed in the following that walk the user through performing an analysis.
- Welcome
- Carbon in forest ecosystems
- Carbon in forest products
- Greenhouse gas emissions from forest product manufacturing facilities
- Greenhouse gas emissions associated with forestry operations, fiber recovery oper-
ations and non-wood fiber production
- Greenhouse gas emissions associated with producing other raw materials/fuels
- Greenhouse gas emissions associated with purchased electricity, steam, and heat
- Transport-related greenhouse gas emissions
- Emissions associated with product use
- Emissions associated with product end-of-life
- Avoided emissions
6.8 Summary
- Uncertainty
- Benchmarking
The FICAT model has many default values included that can be used; however, it
is encouraged that user- and project-specific data be used whenever possible. With
