Hi @Eliana.p , thanks for your message!
I’d say that there are 2 main issues related with CLT I’ve come across so far if compared with a reinforced concrete structure:
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The first issue was explained in this other post: CLT (kgCO2/m3) similar to CONCRETE (kgCO2/m3) ¿why? - #7 by xramon. In this case I’ve arrived to different conclusions after writing it:
- Depending on the country this can be an issue or not
- In the case of Spain the electricity mix before 2020 might impact negatively to the materials that had high electricity consumption during the manufacturing process which is the case of the CLT (because of the drying)
- Those EPDs that were made using the EN15804 could have different interpretations among the GWP, so if they are updated with the EN15804 + A2 would be better
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The other issue is what this post explains which is the higher of PoCP if compared with a concrete structure. In this case I’ve not discovered anything new really. Same conclusions as listed above. I’ve contacted some manufacturers and had conversations with them. They are not experts of the LCA so they’ve put me in contact with the assessor that did the LCA. At the same time the assessor can justify that the process they followed was correct and under the stablished procedures. When I asked them about why this and others numbers were higher compared with other EPDs, they said that they didn’t make the other EPDs so they couldn’t answer me… I can imagine that contacting with the involved in the extraction or processing process wouldn’t be that useful. But looking forward to have more feedback so I’d love to hear from you if you find some interesting insides
keep in touch!
thanks!