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Research Paper FPL–RP–707 22 for the extended service life after repair. A conservative approach was used in the study by assuming a pallet can only be repaired a single time; typically, wooden pallets can be repaired multiple times. Accounting for multiple repairs would probably decrease the environmental impacts for a cradle-to-grave analysis because less virgin wood material would be needed and RSL will be longer. Data for the volume of wood material per pallet were not available at all facilities because a typical pallet facility manufactures pallets in a wide variety of sizes. The study evaluated the most commonly used pallets in the sector, the GMA-style pallet (about 35% of total production in 2016). Specialty pallets constituted a large portion of the manufactured pallets, about 39% (Gerber 2018, Gerber and others 2020). 4.4 Conclusions and Recommendations This study presents a comprehensive industry-average environmental impact analysis of the wooden pallet manufacturing and recycling sector in the United States. The data were collected from wooden pallet facilities throughout the United States. The industry-average LCI developed was representative of the United States for an average wooden pallet produced. The scope and content of this report was in line with the wooden pallet PCR, which will be used to develop an industry-average EPD. Raw material supply Module [A1] and product manufacturing Module [A3] were the major contributors to the overall environmental impact. The raw material supply phase, which includes lumber production, constituted about 34% of the GHG emissions. Wooden pallets showed notable GHG benefits when potential environmental benefits were considered [D], such as waste wood being used as fuel to replace natural gas at boilers. Conducting a cradle-to-grave analysis is a complex task for many products. It is especially complex for wood pallets because of the many wood species used, types and sizes of pallets produced, highly dispersed production, and vertical integration of some production facilities handling both new and repaired–remanufacturing pallets. However, without the cradle-to-grave analysis, the full measure of the environmental benefits of the industry itself would not be captured including the increasing number of pallets being repaired or remanufactured (Gerber and others 2020, Shiner 2018). It is likely that a future sectoral analysis would show improved environmental performance because producers will have a more accurate picture of their environmental impacts across the whole supply chain. Wood pallets and their components are easy to repair. This study considered a single repair, which was conservative and thus probably overestimated the environmental impacts of a sectoral analysis as indicated by the repair and reuse stage [B2]. If more repairs were considered, less virgin wood material would be required in addition to extending the RSL, which would probably have a substantial positive environmental impact because of how much the wood material inputs affected the GHG profile. This would be consistent with what was found on the recovered flooring and framing lumber LCA analysis (Bergman and others 2013). Tracking pallets during the use phase could help lower the uncertainty and variability. However, the pallet industry does not control which goods are transported or warehoused using their pallets. Some wood pallet pooling organizations have recorded these data, but they are highly confidential given the economic advantage this information has (Ren and others 2018). A sectoral analysis would be needed to capture enough high-quality data and to be representative of the wood pallet industry. 5 Report Review A review of this LCA report was conducted to ensure that the study methodology, data collection, and analyses were scientifically sound and in conformance with internationally accepted standards and the PCR. In most cases, technical and editorial comments provided by the reviewers were incorporated into the final document. Internal reviews for this report were provided by Dr. Steve Hubbard, USDA Forest Service; Dr. Brad Gething, National Wooden Pallet and Container Association; and James Salazar, Coldstream Consulting. Table 20—Sensitivity of parameters on overall impact for 100,000 lb (45.4 metric tons) of pallet loads of product delivered Core mandatory impact indicator Electricity Fastener Wood material input Unit Base case –20% +20% –20% +20% –20% +20% GWP kg CO 2 eq 10.4 10.1 10.7 10.1 10.6 9.2 11.59 AP kg SO 2 eq 6.30E–02 6.21E–02 6.38E–02 6.22E–02 6.37E–02 5.40E–02 7.20E–02 EP kg Neq 5.00E–03 4.74E–03 5.26E–03 4.98E–03 5.02E–03 4.44E–03 5.56E–03 SP kg O 3 -eq 1.46E+00 1.45E+00 1.47E+00 1.45E+00 1.47E+00 1.24E+00 1.68E+00 ODP kg CFC11eq 2.66E–07 2.44E–07 2.89E–07 2.66E–07 2.66E–07 2.43E–07 2.90E–07 FD MJ surplus 14.4 14.2 14.6 14.3 14.5 12.4 16.32

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