User:Caesarlan1992/sandbox

EPD to Advance the LCA
EPD now is a standardized tool to declare the credible data and information of the environmental impacts of a product based on LCA studies. Introducing EPD to the LCA field can enrich the data sources with higher quality level data. Using the data from EPD can be a reasonable option for the life cycle inventory analysis even though collecting EPD data is a secondary data collection method. If more and more stakeholders can publish the EPD reports, the LCA studies have the potential to be more accurate and to have a higher resolution. In other words, encouraging EPD equals to enlarging the quantity and diversity of the database for LCA studies. The problem emerges from the emergence of EPD is the harmonization issue or say the issue related to the universality, which has been common for some LCA databases. The harmonization refers to the process of transforming the results into a common scheme of representation before releasing so that the results can be easily compared and verified in the future. The issue may be solved by defining minimum requirements for the current EPD schemes, like making widely accepted standards. For example, Manzini et al. explored some practical requirements for developing EPD reports and the parameters affecting the attractiveness, potential costs, and benefits of EPA reports and proposed a framework for the EPD developers. Then this issue was solved by this framework? Without this discussion, this example is useless in demonstrating your previous statement.

Examples of Developing EPD and Using EPD for Decision-making
Back to 2001,  Allander published an article of EPD for an ABB Group product. The article stated the reasons for generating the EPD report and the key focusing aspects in the process of developing the EPD report. The processes steps and product requirements were described in the article related to the production. If compared to this LCA study by Allander, the EPD report emphasized more about the life cycle impact assessment phase in the author’s report. One interesting point related to this report was that the author clearly stated that “customers are increasingly asking for information concerning the environmental performance of products”. In 2007, Del Borghi et al. conducted four case studies of waste disposal in a sanitary landfill to declare the potential environmental impacts. The four case studies compared different technologies for waste treatment and leachate or biogas management in the EPD framework adopted by the authors. The results of analyzing four case studies showed that using the EPD tool enabled the comparisons among different declarations only with some modifications to the existing method, PSR 2003:3, which was a method of preparing EPD reports and published by the Swedish Environmental Management Council. More EPD reports are available from the online databases (e.g. The International EPD System ).

Article evaluation
This article in the first section does not give an overview of the definition and the essential components from the perspective of the modeling technique itself. It will be good if the content can be added to the definition part from the papers listed below which give detailed and comprehensive definition and componenets of ABM.


 * 1) Wooldridge, M. (1997). Agent-based software engineering. IEE Proceedings-Software Engineering, 144(1), 26-37.
 * 2) Helbing, D. (2012). Agent-based modeling. In Social self-organization (pp. 25-70). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
 * 3) Jennings, N. R. (2000). On agent-based software engineering. Artificial intelligence, 117(2), 277-296

Week 3 Potential Topics for Reviewing
Below is the list of 3 potetnial topics for reviewing.


 * 1) Building information modeling in green building
 * 2) Forest product
 * 3) Logging

Comments by Rodrigo Buitrago
I think the article introduction is appropriate. The article should include the description of forestry activities since this stage is common for all forest products. In addition, key information should be included as global production, primary producers, and primary products, among others. The section “Resource pressure” is an important topic, but it should be one of the last sections.

Kai's peer review by Dvecheve
First of all the Lead section should be improved to gain more attention from the public since is the first paragraph, helping to have a better flow that would improve and smooth the audience's reading. If possible, an upgraded picture would give a better look to this article.

I was looking into reference [1] and I am not sure whether this is the right article to cite this sentence "All other non-wood products derived from forest resources, comprising a broad variety of other forest products, are collectively described as non-timber forest products (NTFP).[1] ", since it does not elaborate more information from that article.

Seems that it would be necessary to elaborate more the structure of this article because there is no transition between Resource pressures and Forest product details. One suggestion may be to describe first the variety of industries that currently use forest products by adding some explanation of these industries and/or adding the link to its Wikipedia page. For example, the Pulp (paper) and paper industry, Wood industry, etc.

Darlene Echeverria 03:30, 19 February 2019 (UTC) Darlene Echeverria 19:46, 20 February 2019 (UTC) A forest product is any material derived from forestry for direct consumption or commercial use, such as lumber, paper, or forage for livestock. Wood, by far the dominant product of forests, is used for many purposes, such as wood fuel (e.g. in form of firewood or charcoal) or the finished structural materials used for the construction of buildings, or as a raw material, in the form of wood pulp, that is used in the production of paper. All other non-wood products derived from forest resources, comprising a broad variety of other forest products, are collectively described as non-timber forest products (NTFP). Non-timber forest products are viewed to have fewer negative effects on forest ecosystem when providing income sources for local community.

Forest Products Details
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations publishes an annual yearbook of forest products. The FAO Yearbook of Forest Products is a compilation of statistical data on basic forest products for all countries and territories of the world. It contains series of annual data on the volume of production and the volume and value of trade in forest products. It includes tables showing direction of trade and average unit values of trade for certain products. Statistical information in the yearbook is based primarily on data provided to the FAO Forestry Department by the countries through questionnaires or official publications. In the absence of official data, FAO makes an estimate based on the best information available. FAO also publishes an annual survey of pulp and paper production capacities around the world. The survey presents statistics on pulp and paper capacity and production by country and by grade. The statistics are based on information submitted by correspondents worldwide, most of them pulp and paper associations, and represents 85% of the world production of paper and paperboard.

Based on these demands, the forest products can be further explored. Pulp and paper industry has high volume demand for the wood materials including both softwood and hardwood. Wood industry can consume large volume and varieties of wood products including logs, lumbers, furniture, and other products.

Producing Forest Product
Producers of forest products are heavily depending on the forest types and ownership (see Forest). As wood is the dominant product of the forest product, the processes of producing wood products are important. The general processes for commercial land can include seedling production, site preparation, planting, applying fertilizers and herbicides, thinning (pre-commercial or commercial), and logging. The processes may vary due to different species and spatial locations. Products category may include logs, lumbers, residues, etc. For NTFP, the processes can have a large variety (see Non-timber forest product).

Forest Products in Sustainability
In 2015, the United Nations set 17 Sustainable Developemnt Goals (SDG) as global goals from 2015 to 2030. As renewable resources on earth, forest products can assist in several SDGs in this agenda.

Zero hunger
As forest products can provide a large variaty of foods (e.g. nuts, fruits, sugar), hunger issue can be addressed by properly managing the forest.

Good health and well-being for people
Forests no only sequester the carbnon dioxide and provide oxygen but also play an essential role in our ecosystem. Forests are crucial to avoid soil erosion, control pollutatns, balance the eco-system, and so on.

Affordable and clean energy
Forest products, including wood chips and forest residues, can be converted to bioethanol, biodfuel, biogas, and other bioenergy sources (see also Bioenergy). Common conversion technologies can contain fermentation, pyrolysis, gasification, and other technologies. These renewable energy sources can be a sustitute for traditional fossil fuels.

Climate action
Forest products can work towadrs reducing global warming trends. One core idea is that forest products themselves are the storages for carbon dioxide. First, as mentioned above, bioenergy replaces fossil energy and reduces the greenhouse gas emissions. Second, timerbs from forest can be sustainable construction materials. Rather than concrete that is hard for degradation and recycled, structural timbers can be recycled for re-use or for biodegradation.

Resource Pressures
Many forest management policies have been implemented that impact forest product economics, including forest access restrictions, harvesting fees, and harvest limits. Deforestation, global warming and other environmental concerns have increasingly affected the availability and sustainability of forest products, as well as the economies of regions dependent upon forestry around the world. In recent years, the idea of sustainable forestry, which aims to preserve crop yields without causing irreversible damage to ecosystem health, has changed the relationship between environmentalists and the forest products industry. Stakeholders in the forest products industry include government departments, commercial enterprises, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), policy-makers and analysts, private and international organizations.