Calculating the carbon footprint of a wood product as a supplier

A furniture manufacturer or wood processor is increasingly asked: what is the CO2 footprint of this product? Per chair, per m2 of flooring, per cubic metre of wood.

Why wood is special

Wood stores CO2 as it grows. Whether that storage counts as a negative emission in your footprint depends on the calculation method. The cradle-to-gate approach that verified.supply uses does not count the stored CO2 — only the emissions from production, transport and processing. That is the most widely used and most widely accepted method for B2B reporting.

The calculation for wood products (step by step)

Step 1 — Determine the dry weight of your product (kg).

Step 2 — Calculate the amount of energy you use per kg of product (kWh of gas + electricity divided by production volume).

Step 3 — Add the upstream emissions: sourcing, drying and transporting the wood also uses energy. Rule of thumb: 0.3-0.8 kg CO2e per kg of processed wood, depending on origin and drying method.

Step 4 — Total in kg CO2e per kg of finished product, per m2 or per unit.

Combining EUDR and product footprint

If you are also subject to the EUDR (wood products fall under the EUDR), you can use the origin data of your wood (GPS plots) to determine the upstream emission factor more precisely, based on forest type and transport distance.