Resources, Conservation & Recycling 166 (2021) 105346

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Resources, Conservation & Recycling

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resconrec

Full length article

Building materials in a circular economy: The case of wood waste as

CO2-sink in bio concrete
Lucas Rosse Caldas a, d, *, Anna Bernstad Saraiva a, André F.P. Lucena b,
M’hamed Yassin Da Gloria a, Andrea Souza Santos c, Romildo Dias Toledo Filho a
a
Civil Engineering Program, COPPE, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, UFRJ, Cidade Universitária, Ilha do Fundão, CEP 21941-972 Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
b
Energy Planning Program, COPPE, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, UFRJ, Cidade Universitária, Ilha do Fundão, CEP: 21941-972 Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
c
Transport Engineering Program, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, UFRJ, Cidade Universitária, Ilha do Fundão, CEP 21941-972 Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
d
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Arquitetura (PROARQ), Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Cidade Universitária, Ilha do Fundão, CEP 21941-901, Rio
de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This paper aims to assess greenhouse gases’ (GHG) emissions in the life cycle of wood bio-concretes (WBC)
Circular economy production when recycled wood shavings (WS) are used as a circular economy (CE) strategy. Two WBC were
Life cycle assessment (lca) evaluated, one with a higher content of WS (WBC–HC) and another with a lower content (WBC-LC). Different
Biogenic carbon
WS recycling and transportation scenarios were evaluated. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology was
Climate change
Bio-concrete
used, considering a cradle-to-gate scope, comparing two methods for calculation of GHG emissions: IPCC
Transportation GWP100 and GWPbio. The transport analysis was carried out considering the WBC production in 26 Brazilian
cities, according to different locations where waste WS are generated. In order to increase the robustness of the
study, a sensitivity analysis was performed for: types of WS allocation, the origin of WS (waste x virgin mate­
rials), transportation efficiency, and electricity grid matrix. We verified that the waste WS content increase in
WBC resulted in climate change mitigation for all cases and scenarios (when the biogenic carbon is considered).
However, this benefit can vary according to WS availability and transport efficiency. Therefore, transportation
must deserve special attention for the CE evaluation. When the GWPbio method is used and CO2 capture during
the eucalypt growth is accounted for, the GHG emissions of WBC production can be very low (15 kgCO2-eq/m3).
We conclude that recycling wood waste to use in WBC can be considered a good CO2 sink and a pathway for the
low-carbon and circular construction industry.

1. Introduction
Circular economy (CE) is gradually attracting attention from scien­
tific and policy communities to support the development of products
with higher amounts of reused or recovered materials in order to
maximize the efficiency in resource use. In tropical and subtropical
countries, that are commonly developing countries, plant (or bio-based)
residues are generated in large quantities in agricultural and forestry
activities and, in some cases, they are just burned without any energy
recovery. In addition, it is a common practice that the burning process
occurs in open spaces, resulting in environmental and human health
impacts (Luhar et al., 2019).
It is expected that a major part of the global construction demand
will be centered in emerging economies, such as Asia, Africa, and South
and Central America (UN Environment and International Energy
Agency, 2017). Brazil and other developing countries have interesting
features for the development of a CE, especially in the building sector,
with its expected growth in the next years to attend the national housing
deficit (Pinheiro, 2016). Thus, the construction of thousands of new
homes can be seen as an opportunity for reusing or recycling bio-based
waste, which is a promising strategy for the bio-material cascading
process (Jarre et al., 2020). Additionally, buildings can be viewed as an
important carbon stock in cities (Chen et al., 2020), so the use of
bio-based building materials that come from waste can play an critical
role in climate change mitigation.
However, in this CE strategy, the recovery of waste as raw materials

* Corresponding author. Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (UFRJ), Departamento de Estruturas, Departamento de Estruturas. Prédio da Reitoria/FAU, Av.
Pedro Calmon, 550. Cidade Universitária, Ilha do Fundão 21941485 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Brasil - Caixa-postal: 21941485.
E-mail address: lucas.caldas@fau.ufrj.br (L.R. Caldas).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.105346
Received 28 August 2020; Received in revised form 6 December 2020; Accepted 6 December 2020
Available online 26 December 2020
0921-3449/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
L.R. Caldas et al.
Fig. 1. Wood bio-concrete (WBC).
can be limited depending on their availability and the kind of treatment
needed. Although some studies point out that the main limitations for
the diffusion of CE are regulatory and policy barriers (Ghisellini et al.,
2018; Shi et al., 2019), from a technical perspective, the reuse/recycling
of waste can be limited mainly by recycling processes, local availability
and high transportation costs (Göswein et al., 2018). Thus, these aspects
must be quantified and evaluated in order to assess the environmental
feasibility of waste reuse and to estimate whether the use of virgin
sources is more advantageous.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) can be a very useful tool to measure
environmental impacts, especially climate change and greenhouse gas­
ses (GHG) emissions mitigation. It is considered a robust way to quantify
and evaluate the potential environmental impacts of products, pro­
cesses, and services throughout their life cycle and has been widely used
in the construction sector (Cabeza et al., 2014; Röck et al., 2019).
In the last years, the use of LCA has started to gain attention in
evaluating CE strategies applied to the construction sector to assess
benefits in terms of climate change mitigation strategies. There is a
special interest in the use of recycled Construction and Demolition
Waste (CDW) (López Ruiz et al., 2020). Gallego-Schmid et al. (2020)
reviewed the literature related to the CE in the construction sector in
terms of climate change mitigation and concluded that although closing
the loops can be a good strategy in terms of GHG emissions’ reduction, it
is highly dependent on the type and efficiency of the recycling process
and transportation distances. Foster (2020) proposes a framework to
apply the CE principles for the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage
buildings to reduce environmental impacts. The framework was struc­
tured considering a cradle-to-grave perspective, similar to an LCA study.
However, in the literature, there are just a few examples of recovered
bio-based waste for use in construction materials, which points out to a
scientific gap.
In Brazil, bio-based waste commonly comes from industrialized
wooden products such as particleboards, panels, laminated floors,
furniture, construction formworks, etc. It is estimated that more than 10
million tons of wood waste are generated annually, 63% of which is
burned, many times without energy recovery (Indústria Brasileira de
Árvores, 2019). Therefore, the use of wood waste for other purposes,
such as CE with wood cascading (Jarre et al., 2020), should be
encouraged.
Concrete is the predominant material in the building sector in most
countries (Meyer, 2009) due to its availability, low cost, good perfor­
mance, and durability. Concrete production has received special atten­
tion in LCA and CE studies, investigating mainly the use of waste for
replacing cement or aggregates, for example, using CDW (Colangelo
et al., 2020; Pantini et al., 2019; Santos et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2019)
or other industrial wastes (Arrigoni et al., 2020; Göswein et al., 2018;
2
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 166 (2021) 105346
Hossain et al., 2018; Nakic, 2018; Turk et al., 2015). Most studies point
out that the replacement of some concrete components, especially the
Portland cement, reduces environmental impacts, including global
warming.
Da Gloria and Toledo Filho (2016) presented an alternative type of
concrete using wood shavings’ (WS) waste as aggregates instead of
mineral (sand, gravel, etc.), here called wood bio-concrete (WBC). When
bio-based aggregates are mixed with cementitious materials, it is
possible to produce lightweight concrete with good thermal and
acoustical properties (Amziane and Sonebi, 2016; Jami et al., 2019).
The most well-studied bio-concrete, in terms of LCA, is the hemp­
crete (Arehart et al., 2020; Ip and Miller, 2012; Pittau et al., 2018;
Ruggieri et al., 2017; Sinka et al., 2018a) that is already used in com­
mercial applications in some European countries (France, United
Kingdom, etc.) and the US (Sinka et al., 2018). However, hemp is a
virgin source of biomass, and WS can be considered one of the most
available bio-wastes in different countries. Most LCA studies about WS
recycling are focused on the production of particleboards (Hossain and
Poon, 2018) or other wooden products (Ng et al., 2014). There are very
few studies with a focus on alternative bio-concretes, and even less with
a focus on LCA. (Rosse Caldas et al., 2020) evaluated the use of bamboo
bio-concrete as an alternative for buildings’ climate change impacts
reduction in Brazil due to its lower carbon footprint and good thermal
performance. Caldas et al. (2020) verified that the use of Supplementary
Cementitious Materials (SCM), in this case, fly ash and metakaolin, in
WBC production, improves both mechanical and environmental per­
formance. Both studies show that bio-concretes made of waste can be an
interesting alternative, mainly in developing countries. However, as­
pects related to the circularity of materials were not evaluated in-depth.
There is a literature gap related to the environmental impacts’ study
of the WS’ recycling process and transportation for use in bio-concretes.
This is especially so when considering longer distances, e.g., more than
1000 km, which can be the case of continental dimension countries.
Most studies in existing literature consider the European countries’
context. In terms of wood supply chains, Klein et al. (2016) evaluated
the German case. Garcia and Hora (2017) assessed the transportation
GHG emissions’ impact in different European countries (Germany,
United Kingdom, Italy, and Finland). In both studies, transportation
showed to be a limitation for the wood waste recovery, even when
evaluating small distances, limited to 250 km.
In this context, some research questions emerge: (1) Can wood waste
be considered a CO2-sink when used for the production of WBC? (2)
Does the WS recycling and treatment process have an important influ­
ence on WBC production in terms of mitigation of GHG emissions? (3)
Does transportation have a significant influence on the life cycle GHG
emissions impacts when recycled or reused waste is used to produce
L.R. Caldas et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 166 (2021) 105346

Table. 1
Wood bio-concrete mixtures composition (kg/m3).
Mixture Cement (kg/ Metakaolin (kg/ Fly ash (kg/m3) Wood shavings (kg/ Calcium chloride (kg/ VMA additive (kg/ Mixing water (kg/
m3) m3) m3) m3) m3) m3)

WBC-LC 428 214 71 140 19 – 551

WBC HC 412 137 137 247 21 0.3 469

VMA – Viscosity modificatory additive.

WBC? (4) Is it better to use distant recycled WS or local virgin sources for
WBC production in terms of GHG emissions?
In order to answer these questions, the objective of this article is to
quantify the WBC’s life cycle GHG emissions when WS are used as raw
material (WBC) to assess its role as low carbon and circular economy
alternative in the construction sector, using a Brazilian case study. In
addition, the WS-WBC potential as a strategy for storing CO2 is evalu­
ated. Two climate change impact methods were employed, and different
aspects were evaluated by sensitivity analysis to improve the robustness
of the evaluation.
The novelty of this is study is related to the integration of the eval­
uation of change mitigation and CE in an innovative building material,
the WBC, considering stages of recycling, treatment, and transportation
of WS for WBC production in the context of a continental and developing
country, since bio-concretes are receiving special attention in different
countries as an alternative for GHG reduction in the concrete industry
(Amziane and Sonebi, 2016; Jami et al., 2019). In addition, our study
brings new guidelines for circular bio-concretes design and GHG emis­
sions life cycle evaluation.
2. Materials and methods
This study combined experimental data collected in a laboratory and
emissions modeling (using an attributional LCA). As such, the methods
are divided into (1) Characterization of WBC and (2) LCA.
cement of high early strength, metakaolin and fly ash, mixed with
chemical additives, calcium chloride (CaCl2) and viscosity modification
additive (VMA), and water. In the laboratory, diverse mixtures were
tested until reaching the same values of compressive strength, around 5
MPa, in order to have a fair functional comparison while increasing the
WS content. This value is considered as a minimum in order to attend
structural applications for concrete masonry (ABNT, 2014). In the end,
two mixtures of WBC were evaluated, with low content (WBC-LC – 140
kg/m3) and high content (WBC–HC – 247 kg/m3) of WS, as presented in
Table 1.
2.2. Life cycle assessment
2.2.1. Definition of objective, scope, and functional unit
The objective of this LCA study was to compare different WBC
mixtures, with a focus on the content, origin, recycling, treatment, and
transportation of WS in order to find directives for CE in terms of miti­
gation of life cycle GHG emissions. For the scope definition, the standard
EN 15,978:2011 (CEN, 2011) was used, considering the following stages
and modules: raw materials supply (A1) – cement, metakaolin, fly ash,
wood shavings, and chemical additives production; raw materials
transportation to WBC factory (A2); WBC manufacturing (A3); and
benefits (D) due to avoided impacts related to the end-of-life (EoL) of
WS. The functional unit was set to 1 m3 of WBC with a minimum
compressive strength of 5 MPa.

2.1. Characterization of wood bio-concrete mixtures 2.2.2. Life cycle inventory

The life cycle inventory (LCI) was performed based on laboratory
Two WBC (Fig. 1) mixes were compared. They were manufactured data, literature, and the Ecoinvent database v. 3.3. The original activities
using recycled and treated WS (collected from a wooden panel factory in of Ecoinvent had the electricity dataset changed to an Ecoinvent process
Rio de Janeiro) and different cementitious materials: Brazilian Portland representing the Brazilian electricity grid matrix, using the year 2014 as

Fig. 2. System boundaries of the recycled WS.

3
L.R. Caldas et al.
Fig. 3. Geographic Distribution of Reconstructed Wood Panels, Laminate Floors Production, and Thermal power plant units in Brazil. Source: Adapted from Indústria
Brasileira de Árvores (2019).
reference. GHG emissions were accounted for at all stages. It is impor­
tant to say that the year 2014 was an atypical year, with higher GHG
emissions for the grid matrix, due to the drought crisis in Brazil. How­
ever, this year was used because it was the data already available in
Ecoinvent, and it can be considered a conservative assumption.
A high initial resistance cement, CPV, with 90% of clinker, 5% of
crushed limestone, and 5% of gypsum, was considered, as CPV is nor­
mally used in Brazil. The average thermal energy consumption and
electricity used in Brazilian cement plants for clinker and cement pro­
duction were used, according to WBCS (2019) and Energia (2018).
A kaolin extraction and calcination process using charcoal as an
energy source, based on Henrique et al. (2014), were considered for
metakaolin in the study. Fly ash is considered as waste, entering the
system without environmental burden, considering merely the treat­
ment normally performed to use as an SCM. Data from Chen et al. (2010)
was used to model this process, after adaptation, to address the Brazilian
electric energy mix for the year 2014.
Since WS are generated as waste in commercial production of
wooden products without any economic value, it was considered that
they do not cause environmental impacts in their acquisition besides the
recycling and treatment stages presented in Fig. 2. These stages include
screening, homogenization, and washing at 80 ◦ C for the removal of
wood extractives (the use of 0.15 kWh of electricity and 10 L of water
per kg of dry WS was measured in the laboratory). The detailed LCI for
WBC treatment is presented in Appendix A1 (Table A1). For the benefits
(D), it was considered the avoided GHG emissions of the WS incineration
process, including transportation to the incineration plant. Data from
Ecoinvent v.3.3 was used and presented in Appendix A1 (Table A2).
The amount of carbon content in WS was quantified through
elementary analyses of Carbon, Hydrogen, and Nitrogen (CHN), and we
found a 53% value of WS dry mass. However, this value can change
according to different factors, especially the type of wood. In order to
account for this uncertainty, the amount of CO2 absorbed and stored in
WS was calculated, considering three values (47%, 50%, and 53%). A
similar assumption was used by Pittau et al. (2018). We assumed that the
WS come from Eucalyptus, considering sustainable forest management,
with a rotation period of 10 years (Ríos, 2009). We used the method
developed by Guest et al. (2012) that defines a GWPbio index. We
considered that the biogenic CO2 is stored indefinitely (more than 100
years) since the WBC’s cementitious materials tend to mineralize the
4
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 166 (2021) 105346
WS, which was the same approach performed by Pittau et al. (2018) and
Ruggieri et al. (2017). Assuming the ten-year rotation period and that
the CO2 will be stored for more than 100 years in the anthroposphere,
we found the GWPbio factor of 0.96 presented by Guest et al. (2012).
Brazil is a country with continental dimensions, which could influ­
ence transportation distances of building materials. Thus, different dis­
tances for the transportation of raw materials (A2) were assumed,
considering the geographical distribution of industrialized wooden
product factories and thermal coal power plants for WS and fly ash,
respectively. Both of them can be considered as constrained available
materials since they come as waste from other industrial processes and
are concentrated in specific regions of Brazil (most of them in the South
and Southeast), according to Fig. 3. Then, the following assumptions
were made for the transportation stage:
• Wood shavings and fly ash (constrained available materials): dis­
tances calculated according to map in Fig. 3, presented in Appendix
A2 (Table A3).
• Cement, metakaolin, calcium chloride, and VMA additive (other
materials): we assumed three constant values for transportation
distances (minimum, average, and maximum), presented in Appen­
dix A2 (Table A4).
• Transportation of wood shavings to incineration plant (avoided GHG
emissions) and from recycling plant to on-site sorting and collection
– 50 km.
For all cases, the road modal with EURO 3 and 10–20 tones was
adopted from the Ecoinvent database, considering that Brazilian trucks
for building materials transportation normally have these characteristics
(Caldas and Sposto, 2017). The distances were measured by using
Google Maps (Developers, 2018), and the shortest distances between the
factories and the site locations were adopted. The cities selected were
the twenty-six Brazilian state capitals, divided by region, as presented in
Fig. 3.
2.2.3. Life cycle impact assessment
Two different GWP methods were evaluated to increase the robust­
ness of the results: (1) The GWPbio by Guest et al. (2012) and the IPCC
GWP100 (Stocker, 2013) method. These methods were employed in
order to see the biogenic carbon influence in the total GHG emissions of
L.R. Caldas et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 166 (2021) 105346

Table. 2
(mW x$W )
Summary of items evaluated in the sensitivity analysis. W$ = (2)
(mW x$W + $P )
Sensitivity analysis items Description of alternatives

GHG emissions from the production No allocation (Baseline scenario). Mass and Where Wm is the coefficient allocation of emissions that are allocated in
of wood shavings and fly ash economic allocation. WS and FA in mass, mW is the mass of WS or FA and, mP is the mass of the
Electricity used for wood shavings Cleaner source – Brazil (Baseline scenario). main product. W$ is the coefficient allocation of emissions that are
recycling and treatment GHG intensive electricity grid matrix –
allocated in WS and FA in R$ (Brazilian currency). $P is the market value
China.
Transportation efficiency Truck capacity and way of return (empty or of the main product (particleboard or electricity generated by coal), and
loaded). 100% carried and carried in return $W is the price of WS and FA. The W$ for WS is null since WS do not have
(Baseline scenario). 50% carried and empty economic value. We found the coefficients presented in Table 3, where
return (worst scenario). FA values are consistent with the literature.
Origin of wood shavings Waste wood shavings (Baseline scenario).
Virgin wood shavings.
The second item evaluated in the sensitivity analysis is the electricity
grid matrix used in the WS recycling and treatment process. We
considered a cleaner source (from the Brazil grid matrix) compared with
a source with a higher share of fossil fuels (from the China grid matrix),
Table. 3 using the Ecoinvent v. 3.3 database. It should be pointed out that this
Allocation coefficients and comparison with literature. choice was made to extrapolate the evaluation carried out here,
Material Wood shavings (WS) Fly Ash (FA) considering data from another country with continental dimensions, but
Type of allocation Mass Economic Mass Economic with a very different electricity grid matrix (with higher GHG emis­
This study 12.5 0.0 11.0 3.0
sions). The evaluation of different countries’ electricity grid matrix,
Hossain et al. (2018) – – 12.4 2.2 especially ones with considerable differences, is a common practice in
Seto et al. (2017) – – 9.3 4.3 LCA studies, e.g., the study of Escamilla et al. (2016), as a way to see
Chen et al. (2010) – – 12.4 1.0 how these differences impact the final results, and as a way to improve
the scientific contribution of the research, not intending to get a very
local and specific study.
WBC, since, in the IPCC method, the biogenic carbon is considered Assuming transportation is an important aspect for CE and consid­
neutral, while it is regarded as a sink using GWPbio. ering that in Brazil and other developing countries, the transportation of
building materials is many times inefficient, different scenarios were
2.2.4. Sensitivity analysis built considering the capacity and whether trucks return empty or
A sensitivity analysis was made for four premises adopted in this loaded, using Ecoinvent database v. 3.3 as presented in Appendix A1.
study, according to Table 2. We chose items that have an important As a last sensitivity analysis, we considered different sources of WS:
influence in terms of CE, according to Garcia and Hora (2017) and Jarre the first one from waste (the WS that were previously evaluated) and the
et al. (2020). second from virgin sources. This sensitivity analysis aims to assess the
Firstly, mass and economic allocation were considered. For WS, we extent to which the use of waste WS, instead of virgin WS, is beneficial in
adopted the production of particleboards produced in Brazil, and for FA, terms of GHG emissions. We considered that the WS from a virgin source
the electricity produced by bituminous coal. For both cases was used come from adequate forest management, where the tree is managed, cut,
data from Ecoinvent v.3.3. Detailed data for the allocation process is collected, processed for the production of wood aggregates (chipping,
presented in Appendix A3 (Tables A5 and A6). The coefficients of mass flaking, and screening), and dried, according to data of Hossain and
(Wm) and economic allocation (W$) of the total impacts of waste ma­ Poon (2018), adapted to the Brazilian context (in terms of electricity and
terials (W), WS, and FA, are calculated through Eq. (1) and (2), transportation). Additional data was used for the forest activities
respectively, according to Hossain et al. (2018). (plantation, fertilization, maintenance, etc.) based on Ferro et al. (2018)
mW that evaluated the production of oriented strand boards in Brazil.
Wm = (1) The premises for the sensitivity analyses resulted in 0.34 kgCO2-eq/
mW+mP
kg (for Brazilian electricity) and 0.58 kgCO2-eq/kg (for Chinese

Fig. 4. Comparison between WBC mixtures, GWP methods, and types of allocation (WBC – Wood bio-concrete. LC - Low wood shavings content. HC - High wood
shavings content. The error bars represent the standard deviation due to transportation scenarios and biogenic carbon (When the GWPbio method is used).

5
L.R. Caldas et al.
Fig. 5. GHG emissions profile for WBC production considering the Brazilian electricity. (a) Without allocation. (b) Mass allocation. (c) Economic allocation. WBC –
Wood bio-concrete. LC - Low wood shavings content. HC - High wood shavings content.
electricity) of virgin WS, compared to 0.09 kgCO2-eq/kg (for Brazilian
electricity) and 0.31 kgCO2-eq/kg (for Chinese electricity) of waste WS.
All the data used is presented in Appendix A1. New modeling was per­
formed for WBC-LC and WBC–HC, considering the best (100% default)
and worst (50% empty) scenarios for transportation efficiency. For vir­
gin WS, we assumed three different transportation distances: 50 km,
200 km, and 400 km.
3. Results and discussion
This section divided the results and their related discussions into the
following subsections, according to questions raised in the Introduction
section: (3.1) Total GHG emissions evaluation, (3.2) GHG emissions
profile evaluation, (3.3) Evaluation of the transport contribution to
overall GHG emissions, and (3.4) Comparison of GHG emissions be­
tween recycled and virgin wood shavings.
3.1. Total GHG emissions evaluation
The GHG emissions results for the production of WBC using recycled
WS, under the different premises for the sensitivity analyses (allocation),
are presented in Fig. 4.
There are considerable differences between the two methods for life
cycle emissions calculation. When the GWP100 method was used, the
CO2 captured during the eucalyptus growth was not accounted for. Not
considering this capture increases the GHG emissions of bio-concretes
Fig. 6. GHG emissions profile for WBC production considering the Chinese electricity. (a) Without allocation. (b) Mass allocation. (c) Economic allocation. WBC –
Wood bio-concrete. LC - Low wood shavings content. HC - High wood shavings content.
6
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 166 (2021) 105346
drastically, reaching more than 500 kgCO2-eq/m3 (see Fig. 4 for WBC-
LC and WBC–HC) for both WBC mixtures. On the other hand, when
the biogenic CO2 is accounted for, it is possible to produce low carbon
WBC with GHG emissions with just 15 kgCO2-eq/m3 for WBC–HC (see
Fig. 4 at the bottom of the error blue bar) for the cases with and without
economic allocation. These results answer the first question and show
that wood waste can be considered a CO2-sink when it is used for WBC
production. Caldas et al. (2017) evaluated other bio-concretes using
bamboo and rice husk aggregates, with 133 kgCO2-eq/m3 and 387
kgCO2-eq/m3, respectively, even accounting for the biogenic carbon.
However, for these bio-concretes, just Portland cement is employed as a
binder, while for WBC, fly ash and metakaolin are used, replacing the
cement, which helps to justify the low GHG emissions. Expressive dif­
ferences between GWP methods have been verified already by Guest
et al. (2012). The carbon content present in the biomass has an impor­
tant impact on the results. In this case study, three values were used
(47%, 50%, and 53%), and the difference between the highest and
smallest value reached 5-fold times for GWPbio-WBC–HC, as can be seen
by the bigger error bars in Fig. 4.
Aspects related to methodological choices are very relevant for the
GHG emission results. Firstly, the question of sequestration of biogenic
carbon is a polemic issue, already discussed by several authors (Guest
et al., 2012; Fouquet et al., 2015; Peñaloza et al., 2016; Pittau et al.,
2018). In our study, the sequestration of biogenic carbon had a great
influence on the final results, especially for the WBC–HC. Yet another
issue that can influence the results, although it was not investigated in
L.R. Caldas et al.
Fig. 7. Contribution of different energy sources in life cycle GHG emissions impact on recycling and treatment of WS. (a) Brazilian electricity. (b) Chinese electricity.
the present study, is the consideration of land use, which is rarely
considered in LCA or carbon footprint studies. Several standards and
methods do not address these two aspects clearly (Negishi et al., 2019;
Dolezal et al., 2017;Tellnes et al., 2017).
Another point for discussion in the literature related to biogenic
carbon is the end-of-life of bio-based materials. For example, for wooden
or bamboo materials, if they are burned with or without energy recov­
ery, the accounting of biogenic carbon will have different impacts in
terms of GHG emission contribution, as already shown by Fouquet et al.
(2015) and Pittau et al. (2018). However, in the case of WBC that is an
inorganic material, the WS and consequently the stored CO2 tend to be
locked indefinitely, acting as a CO2 sink. Thus, we suggest that negative
quantification should be assumed. Negative quantification has previ­
ously been proposed for similar bio-concretes, such as hempcrete (Pit­
tau et al., 2018; Ruggieri et al., 2017) and bamboo bio-concrete (Caldas
et al., 2019). The new version of EN 15,804 (2019) tried to align with the
European Union Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) that made the
accounting of biogenic carbon and EoL stages mandatory in Environ­
mental Product Declarations (EPD). One of the justifications for this
modification is the possibility of measuring all benefits of circular and
bio-based materials (Durão et al., 2020).
3.2. GHG emissions profile evaluation
The GHG emissions profile for the production of WBC using recycled
WS, under the different premises for the sensitivity analyses (allocation
and electricity), is presented in Figs. 5 and 6.
The cement was the highest emission material due to the production
of clinker by calcination of calcium carbonate and the use of fossil fuels.
Hossain and Poon (2018) found that the cement contributes to 57% of
GHG emissions of cement-based particleboard production in Hong Kong.
Metakaolin comes in second place due to kaolin extraction and calci­
nation (considered here as charcoal). Caldas et al. (2019) also find that
the Portland cement and metakaolin result in the highest GHG-emissions
from bamboo bio-concrete production in Brazil. The fly ash, CaCl2, and
mixing water had small participation (less than 10%) in the life cycle
GHG emissions. The first one is related to the minimal impacts of fly ash
(even considering the allocation in mass or economic), and for CaCl2,
principally due to the small amount used in WBC. The contribution of
avoided impacts related to the incineration process and transportation
of WS was irrelevant (less than 0.5%).
In terms of avoided impacts, waste reuse or recycling will avoid end-
of-life impacts, which is an important aspect regarding CE. In this study,
the chosen EoL process (incineration) showed an insignificant contri­
bution to emissions, according to the data used. However, it is important
to mention that wood waste can be used for energy generation (e.g.,
electricity production), replacing fossil fuels. More GHG-intensive
electricity matrixes, such as China’s, tend to have the greatest benefit
in terms of emissions reduction from energy productions by wood-
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Resources, Conservation & Recycling 166 (2021) 105346
burning, as shown by Escamilla et al. (2016). In this sense, there is a
concrete opportunity cost related to different uses of wood waste. The
opportunity cost is commonly strongly context-derived, and there could
be situations where the use of wood for energy generation can be more
advantageous than the use in bio-concretes in terms of climate change
mitigation. Thus, it would be interesting to assess the impacts or benefits
associated with this kind of use on a larger scale, employing LCA with a
consequential approach. Future and more detailed research dedicated to
these two topics should be evaluated.
In terms of the allocation of GHG emissions in waste materials, WS
and FA, it did not have a substantial influence on the final results for
most cases (less than 10%), for both types (mass and economic), except
for the case of WBC–HC, using GWPbio that reached 37%. It occurred
due to the strong influence of biogenic carbon for this mixture that has a
higher content of WS and FA. However, even with the increase of GHG
emissions due to allocation and for the GWP100 method, the WBC–HC
mixture presented better results than the WBC-LC. As presented in Ap­
pendix A4 – Figs. A1 and A2, we evaluated the increase of life cycle GHG
emissions when allocation coefficients (mass and economic) are
changed to 20% and 50% for FA and WS. In these cases, the WBC–HC,
using GWPbio, reached average values of 205 kgCO2-eq /m3 and 150
kgCO2-eq/m3 for mass and economic allocation for 50% allocation co­
efficients, respectively.
The use of different bases for allocation (comparing economic and
mass allocation) demonstrated a significant influence on the results in
the cases where it has coefficients larger than 20%. However, there are
other forms to include the impacts of multifunctional processes, such as
system expansion, which can lead to different results. The economic
allocation is particularly affected by the market price fluctuation, and it
generally has smaller allocation coefficients when compared to mass
allocation since the price of waste and co-products is typically much
smaller the that of the main product, as can be viewed in different
studies that evaluated the impact of allocation in the construction sector
(Chen et al., 2010; Hossain et al., 2018). It must be noted that in the
scenario without allocation, the WS enter as zero-burden, and when the
allocation (mass or economic) is considered, just part of the impacts are
allocated to WS, and the rest, to the main product (wood). However, the
benefits of CO2 capture are 100% allocated in the WS when WS are used
for WBC production. This choice can be justified by the assumption that
if WBC were not produced, the WS would probably be burned, and the
stored CO2 would return to the atmosphere.
Answering the second question, we can see that the WS recycling and
treatment do not have a considerable influence on the GHG emissions of
WBC (reaching 5% for Brazilian electricity and 15% for the Chinese
scenario), even when a high amount of WS is used (WBC–HC) or when a
different method (GWP100 and GWPbio) or electricity grid matrix (Brazil
and China) is used. Only when the allocation impacts of WS and FA are
considerably high (more than 20%) that the impacts of recycled waste
start to become important in the total life cycle GHG emissions, as
L.R. Caldas et al.
Fig. 8. Life cycle GHG emissions considering average values for different Brazilian locations without allocation. (a) WBC-LC. (b) WBC–HC. WBC – Wood bio-
concrete. LC - Low wood shavings content. HC - High wood shavings content. The error bars represent the standard deviation due to transportation scenarios.
Each cluster represents a Brazilian region.
presented in Appendix A4 – Figs. A3 and A4. From these findings, we can
conclude that the GHG emissions for WS recycling and treatment are not
an obstacle for WBC production, and based just on this requirement, it
can be a good option from the CE point of view. Electricity is the factor
that most influenced the life cycle GHG emissions of WS (see Fig. 7),
especially for a country with a GHG-intensive electricity grid matrix, as
the case of the Chinese scenario.
3.3. Evaluation of the transport contribution to overall GHG emissions
In Figs. 8 and 9, we present the GHG emissions and the contribution
of transportation impact, respectively, in terms of different locations for
WBC-LC and WBC–HC and different methods, GWPbio (blue bars) and
GWP100 (orange bars).
When we look at the Brazilian territory, we see that North (AM, RR,
8
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 166 (2021) 105346
AC, and RO - represented by the fist cluster in Figs. 8 and 9) and
Northeast (PI, CE, RN, PE, PB, SE, AL, and BA - represented by the
second cluster in Figs. 8 and 9) regions are the places where the WBC
will have the highest GHG emissions, which confirms the findings by
Caldas and Sposto (2017). These authors pointed out that longer dis­
tances are necessary to transport some building materials (concrete and
ceramic blocks) since Brazil has very different degrees of technological
development. The most developed regions, in terms of industrial
development, are concentrated in the Southeast and South regions,
similar to our findings here. In this sense, the production of WBC using
WS in these locations will result in lower GHG emissions. The cities
located in the South region (PR, SC, and RS) presented the lowest
transportation impact, which is also related to the location of wood
factories and the higher availability of fly ash in this region. Therefore,
we can see here that the South and Southeast regions are the places more
L.R. Caldas et al.
Fig. 9. Average contribution of transportation in life cycle GHG emissions, considering different Brazilian locations without allocation. (a) WBC-LC. (b) WBC HC.
WBC – Wood bio-concrete. LC - Low wood shavings content. HC - High wood shavings content. The error bars represent the standard deviation due to transportation
scenarios. Each cluster represents a Brazilian region.
suitable for the development of industrial-scale production of WBC in
terms of a CE.
When the biogenic carbon is considered, in the GWPbio method (blue
bars), as a negative emission of CO2-eq, the increase in WS content de­
creases the contribution to GHG emissions (see Fig. 8), and the relative
transportation impact increases (see Fig. 9), especially for the WBC–HC
(see Figs. 8b and 9b).
The increase of WS content showed to be a good strategy to reduce
the life cycle GHG emissions of WBC if the GWP method considers the
accounting of biogenic carbon, e.g., GWPbio, even if an allocation is
considered for WS. It is important to note that this occurs even when the
WS is obtained from remote locations (further than 3000 km for an
efficient transportation scenario, e.g., RR, RO, and AM locations – the
North region). The WBC–HC performed better for all locations and
scenarios when compared with the WBC-LC for the GWPbio method
9
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 166 (2021) 105346
(indicated by blue bars in Fig. 8), however, with big differences between
the locations. The greatest difference between them (WBC-LC and
WBC–HC), for GHG emissions (in Fig. 8), occurred for the GWPbio
method in RS (South region), that reached 279% (truck loaded with
100% of capacity and returning loaded), and the smallest difference
occurred for RR (North region) for the worst transportation scenario
(truck loaded with 50% of capacity and returning empty) that reached
just 1%.
Then, answering the third question, transportation has a significant
influence on the life cycle GHG emissions impacts of the WBC, thus in
terms of the circular building products’ design that pretends to employ
recycled or reused waste, the transportation can be a limiting factor per
Klein et al. (2016) and Garcia and Hora (2017). However, for the cases of
continental countries (e.g., Brazil), this influence is much greater. For
the case of bio-based materials that can archive neutral or negative
L.R. Caldas et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 166 (2021) 105346

Table. 4 a near location (50 km), with distances greater than 700 km, for GWPbio
Maximum delivery distance (in km) and variation among the scenarios (in pa­ and GWP100 methods. The transportation efficiency influence is
rentheses) of recycled WS considering different sources of virgin wood shavings notable, almost 2.5 times greater for better efficiency scenarios. For a
(50 km, 200 km, and 400 km) for GWPbio and GWP100 methods. scenario of high transport efficiency (100% default), the use of recycled
GWPbio WS from distant locations (more than 1700 km) is still feasible from the
Bio- Transportation Virgin wood Virgin wood Virgin wood point of view of the GHG emissions, considering the data used in the
concretes scenario shavings shavings shavings
modeling.
(distance 50 (distance 200 (distance 400
km) km) km)
Comparing the impact of WS origin, the recycled option is almost
three times less impactful, considering the data used in this modeling.
WBC - LC 100 % default 1792 km 1945 km 2149 km (best
Most of the impact of virgin WS comes from the forest activities (for
(− 16.6%) (− 9.5%) scenario)
50% empty 704 km 857 km 1061 km Brazilian electricity case – Fig. 10a), followed by electricity consump­
(− 67.2%) (− 60.1%) (− 50.6%) tion for wood debarking, chipping, and screening process. When Chinese
WBC - HC 100 % default 1809 km 1979 km 2166 km (best electricity is used instead of Brazilian, the share of electricity increases
(− 16.5%) (− 8.6%) scenario)
considerably (Fig. 10b) due to the higher GHG emissions related mainly
50% empty 721 km 874 km 1078 km
(− 66.7%) (− 59.6%) (− 50.2%) to the big participation of coal generation in that country. Thus, by these
findings, we can answer the fourth question that the use of recycled WS
GWP100
Bio- Transportation Virgin wood Virgin wood Virgin wood
tend to be more advantageous in terms of GHG emissions when
concretes scenario shavings shavings shavings compared to virgin sources for WBC production, and this is a good
(distance 50 (distance 200 (distance 400 alternative from the CE point of view, even considering long distances
km) km) km) for waste WS.
WBC - LC 100 % default 1796 km 1962 km 2157 km (best The comparison between the virgin and recycled WS showed that
(− 16.7%) (− 9.0%) scenario) electricity consumption is an important emissions source, even for the
50% empty 715 km 863 km 1070 km Brazilian electricity grid matrix. In a scenario with the efficiency
(− 66.9%) (− 60.0%) (− 50.4%)
WBC - HC 100 % default 1822 km 1986 km 2189 km (best
improvement of the WS production process and/or renewable electricity
(− 16.8%) (− 9.3%) scenario) production use, the application of virgin aggregate tends to become
50% empty 736 km 885 km 1086 km more competitive, especially in the Northern and Northeastern regions
(− 66.4%) (− 59.6%) (− 50.3%) in Brazil, where transportation impacts are significant. However, this
statement must be carefully interpreted. It is valid only if adequate forest
and land use management are practiced, which is rarely the case in
carbon footprint, it can turn out a trade-off, losing the benefits related to
developing countries, such as Brazil.
the carbon storage. Finally, transportation efficiency, especially in terms
of carried capacity and type of return (empty or loaded), also showed a
4. Conclusions
big influence on results.

3.4. Comparison of GHG emissions between recycled and virgin wood
shavings
In the section, the maximum transportation distances of recycled WS
are evaluated when compared to virgin WS (considering they are
transported from distances of 50 km, 200 km and 400 km), as presented
in Table 4, considering WBC-LC and WBC–HC (for Brazilian electricity),
and different transportation scenarios (100% default and 50% empty),
and the GWP methods (GWPbio and GWP100). The percentage values
presented in parentheses show the variation concerning the best sce­
nario for transporting recycled wood shavings, which, in this case, is the
transportation of virgin aggregates over a 400 km distance, considering
the best transport efficiency scenario (100% default).
We can see that the scenarios with the use of recycled WS tend to be
better even when considering long transportation distances and least
transport efficiency scenarios (50% empty) and virgins WS coming from
In this study, the life cycle GHG emissions of two mixtures of wood
bio-concretes (WBC) with different contents of wood shavings (WS)
were evaluated under different scenarios, considering two methods for
assessing biogenic CO2-emissions (GWPbio and GWP100). Based on our
research and the premises adopted in the modeling, we want to highlight
the main findings:
• The increase of WS content in WBC leads to a radical decrease in life
cycle GHG emissions when the biogenic carbon is accounted for (in
GWPbio method).
• For WBC production it is better to use waste WS than virgin sources
due to lower GHG emissions in processing and omission of emissions
in forest-related activities of the first alternative – adopting a zero-
burden assumption for used waste WS.
• It is better to transport waste WS for more than 1700 km than to use
virgin sources, assuming efficient transportation.

Fig. 10. Contribution of different energy sources to GHG emissions impact on the production of WS from virgin sources. (a) Brazilian electricity. (b) Chinese
electricity.

10
L.R. Caldas et al.
• If adopting the allocation of environmental burdens to waste WS, the
mass allocation can increase the life cycle GHG emissions of WBC
production, reaching an increment of 37% when the GWPbio method
is used.
• The electricity consumption for the WS recycling and treatment
process can have an important role in life cycle GHG emissions,
especially in countries with a GHG intensive matrix, e.g., China.
• WS transportation distances can be a critical aspect for the devel­
opment of a circular bio-concrete, especially for a scenario with low
efficiency of transportation (considering the capacity and if the truck
returns empty or carried).
We conclude that wood waste can be considered a CO2 sink when
used to produce WBC and can be an interesting strategy for the pro­
duction of low carbon and circular materials in the concrete industry.
In addition, it is important to describe the main limitations of this
study: firstly, some of the used databases are not adapted to the Brazilian
context and can influence the final results; secondly, the type of
modeling of biogenic carbon used here does not consider that some
aspects, e.g., land use, were outside of the scope of the research; other
kinds of allocation, such as system expansion, can also change the re­
sults. These limitations could be explored in future evaluations of other
environmental impacts for WBC production and possible trade-offs.
Authorship contributions
Please indicate the specific contributions made by each author (list
the authors’ initials followed by their surnames). The name of each
author must appear at least once in each of the three categories below.
Category 1 Conception and design of study: L. R. Caldas, A.B. Sar­
aiva, A. Lucena, R. D. Toledo Filho. acquisition of data: L. R. Caldas, M.
Y. da Gloria. analysis and/or interpretation of data: L. R. Caldas, A.B.
Saraiva, A. Lucena, M. Y. da Gloria, A. S. Santos, R. D. Toledo Filho.
Category 2 Drafting the manuscript: L. R. Caldas, A.B. Saraiva, A.
Lucena. revising the manuscript critically for important intellectual
content: L. R. Caldas, A.B. Saraiva, A. Lucena, M. Y. da Gloria, A. S.
Santos, R. D. Toledo Filho.
Category 3 Approval of the version of the manuscript to be published
(the names of all authors must be listed): L. R. Caldas, A.B. Saraiva, A.
Lucena, M. Y. da Gloria, A. S. Santos, R. D. Toledo Filho.
Funding
We want to acknowledge the financial support from CNPq (National
Council of Scientific and Technological Development - Brazil).
Declaration of Competing Interest
None.
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge researchers Francesco Pittau and
Guillaume Habert from ETH Zürich, Institut für Bau- und Infra­
strukturmanagement, Chair of Sustainable Construction, for the previ­
ous discussion about the theme of LCA and bio-concretes. We want to
thank the reviewers for their constructive comments that helped to
improve the quality of the paper. Finally, we want to thank Katerina
Dimitrova for the language review.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.105346.
11
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 166 (2021) 105346
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