Most WISA® birch plywood products are already covered by the Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). For certain specialised WISA birch products, such as UPM Grada, WISA®-PremiumCut, WISA®-Form Elephant and WISA®-Multifloor, the environmental impact has now, for the first time, been calculated in a new third-party reviewed life cycle analysis (LCA) report. The environmental impact of these products differs due to their special coating or construction.
From cradle to gate
Specialised WISA plywood products for furniture manufacturing, vehicle flooring, concrete formwork, die-cutting and other demanding applications, have now undergone a life cycle analysis, giving customers information on these products’ environmental impacts from cradle to gate.
“Both EPD’s and LCA’s are based on same LCA study, so the results on stages A1-A3 are the same,” says UPM Plywood’s Environmental Manager Sanna Kontinen, adding that the new LCA report is lighter: it analyses the products’ impact from cradle to gate instead of from cradle to grave.
For plywood, cradle-to-grave means from raw material sourcing to recycling, incineration or other means of disposal. This entire lifecycle has been calculated for average coated and uncoated WISA birch plywood, as presented in the EPDs.
The LCAs for the rest of the WISA birch products cover the impact from the forest until the panels leave the UPM plywood mill, also known as from cradle to gate. For plywood, such a calculation includes raw materials such as wood, resins and coatings, energy, transportation to the mill, and manufacturing.
