Life cycle assessment (LCA) has become a common methodology to analyze environmental impacts of forestry systems. Although LCA has been widely applied to forestry since the 90s, the LCAs are still often based on generic Life Cycle Inventory (LCI). With the purpose of improving LCA practices in the forestry sector, we developed a European Life Cycle Inventory of Forestry Operations (EFO-LCI) and analyzed the available information to check if within the European forestry sector national differences really exist. We classified the European forests on the basis of "Forest Units" (combinations of tree species and silvicultural practices). For each Forest Unit, we constructed the LCI of their forest management practices on the basis of a questionnaire filled out by national silvicultural experts. We analyzed the data reported to evaluate how they vary over Europe and how they affect LCA results and made freely available the inventory data collected for future use. The study shows important variability in rotation length, type of regeneration, amount and assortments of wood products harvested, and machinery used due to the differences in management practices. The existing variability on these activities sensibly affect LCA results of forestry practices and raw wood production. Although it is practically unfeasible to collect site-specific data for all the LCAs involving forest-based products, the use of less generic LCI data of forestry practice is desirable to improve the reliability of the studies. With the release of EFO-LCI we made a step toward the construction of regionalized LCI for the European forestry sector.
Abstract.One resource indispensable for securing the capacity to carry out processes is an environment made up of social, psychological, physical and other factors. The nature of such environmental factors and the manner in which they affect the capacity to carry out processes and produce goods and/or services translates into a company's ability to meet the expectations of stakeholders, including the organization's customers. In order to define the preconditions for the efficient implementation of processes, it is necessary, among others, to ascertain the manner in which such preconditions influence process operation. One of the criteria that should be applied in such an assessment is the impact of working environment factors (temperature, lighting, noise, toxicity, dust, electromagnetic fields) on the ability to carry out work processes effectively. The paper accounts for working environment factors seen as parameters for the assessment of processes and as criteria for ascertaining the ability to perform work. The impact of the working environment on the capacity to conduct processes was assessed by means of a relationship diagram.
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