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November 2020 Alanya-Rosenbaum, Sevda; Bergman, Richard D. 2020. Cradle-to- grave life-cycle assessment of wooden pallet production in the United States. Research Paper FPL-RP-707. Madison, WI: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory. 80 p. A limited number of free copies of this publication are available to the public from the Forest Products Laboratory, One Gifford Pinchot Drive, Madison, WI 53726-2398. This publication is also available online at www.fpl.fs.fed.us. Laboratory publications are sent to hundreds of libraries in the United States and elsewhere. The Forest Products Laboratory is maintained in cooperation with the University of Wisconsin. The use of trade or firm names in this publication is for reader information and does not imply endorsement by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) of any product or service. 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Submit your completed form or letter to USDA by: (1) mail: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. 20250–9410; (2) fax: (202) 690–7442; or (3) email: program.intake@usda.gov. USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender. Abstract This study performed an environmental sustainability assessment of the wooden pallet industry in the United States using life-cycle assessment methodology. The scope of this study covered the cradle-to-grave life-cycle stages of the wooden pallet supply chain including sourcing of raw material, product manufacturing, transportation, and re- use, repair, and final disposal of pallets. The product stage was composed of raw material supply Module [A1], raw material transport Module [A2], and pallet manufacturing Module [A3]. The use and repair stage was composed of use Module [B1] and repair–reuse Module [B2]. The end- of-life was composed of Module [C]. Beneficially used coproducts and end-of-life material Module [D], which was beyond the system boundary, reported additional benefits. The average cradle-to-grave global warming (GW) impact for a functional unit (FU) of 100,000 lb (45.4 metric tons) of pallet loads of product delivered using wooden pallets was about 10.4 kg CO 2 e. For the product life-cycle stage, the contribution analysis showed that the raw material supply Module [A1] and manufacturing Module [A3] had the highest values for most of the impact categories. The manufacturing Module [A3] had about 35% contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, followed by raw material supply Module [A1] with about 34% contribution. For Module [A1], most GHG emissions came from the sawing and kiln-drying processes for production of the lumber used to make pallet parts. At Module [A3], most GW impact came from the assembly process (specifically, the fasteners), followed by the wood preparation and board shaping processes. Nonrenewable fossil fuels comprised almost 52% of total primary energy consumption of the total 225 MJ/FU. Wooden pallets showed notable GHG benefits when potential environmental benefits were considered (Module [D]), such as when wood coproducts and waste wood generated at the end-of-life stage were used as an energy source to replace natural gas at boilers. Keywords: life-cycle assessment, wooden pallet, environmental product declarations, product category rules, LCA, EPD, PCR Contents Executive Summary .............................................................1 1 Introduction .......................................................................4 2 Life-Cycle Inventory Analysis ..........................................9 3 Life-Cycle Impact Assessment .......................................15 4 Interpretation ...................................................................15 5 Report Review ................................................................22 6 Literature Cited ...............................................................23 Appendix A—Wood Species .............................................26 Appendix B—Pallet Design System Specifications of the Pallets Analyzed .......................................................28 Appendix C—Gate-to-Gate Life-Cycle Inventory per Pallet Manufactured .....................................................66 Appendix D—Grid Mix .....................................................68 Appendix E—Survey Questionnaire ..................................69

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