Chinese Bamboo flooring vs. Brazilian eucalyptus wooden floor: case study of the greenhouse gas emissions by transportation

The dissemination of allegedly more sustainable construction products, such as bamboo flooring imported from China, makes it crucial to understand how much more sustainable those products actually are when compared with their local equivalents. By analysing exclusively the emissions of greenhouse gases related to their transportation, this study compared two floor finish products: Chinese bamboo flooring and Brazilian eucalyptus wood floor. The analysis of the net emissions of greenhouse gases demonstrated that in the case of the bamboo flooring, its transportation across the world alone does not undermine the entire carbon sequestration potential of the material. However, its contribution to reducing the balance is significant. The transportation reduced the sequestration potential of the bamboo material by 28.1%, as opposed to a reduction of 1.4% for the locally produced eucalyptus wood. In addition, the study showed that despite the greater mass of material used per square meter of finished floor, the emissions of greenhouse gases by the transportation of eucalyptus wood is about 8 times lower than that of the bamboo flooring.

Bamboo; Eucalyptus; Floor; Carbon sequestration; Greenhouse gases.