Capturing the potential biodiversity effects of forestry practices in life cycle assessment

The pressure of forestry operations on biodiversity is not appropriately characterized using existing life cycle inventories and impact assessment methodologies. As a consequence, it is not possible to distinguish between well-managed and poorly managed forests in terms of biodiversity. Several attempts have been made to establish a biodiversity impact assessment method to be used in life cycle assessment (LCA). Those methods cannot be easily implemented by practitioners, or they cannot be used to differentiate forestry practices. We therefore propose an alternative approach that requires limited data collection, while reflecting effects of forestry practices on biodiversity.

This paper demonstrates that the biodiversity level of managed boreal forests can be captured in LCA by means of a relatively simple method based on known forestry practices and using the notion of hemeroby, compatible with previously proposed approaches for biodiversity assessment. This method allows differentiating between wood products produced with different forestry practices from one and the same forest type.

The proposed method is a clear improvement compared to commonly used approaches: it does not require measuring field data yet allows the quantification of potential environmental impacts of different forestry practices in boreal forests. The proposed inventory data and characterization factors can contribute to better assess the biodiversity impacts or benefits of forest management practices.

The present description demonstrates how a biodiversity evaluation can be conducted in the case of boreal forestry and how the way it is built converges to values that are comparable to field measurements. It also opens doors for similar methods to be developed for tree plantations under other climates and further to other types of land use.