Direct land use change associated with establishing the plantation is calculated using the Forest Industry Carbon Assessment
Tool v.1.3.1.1 assuming a scenario of converting fallow land to a poplar tree farm.
Data for the amount of carbon on these lands that would be released as CO2as a result of land use change is calculated
in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
The values used are from tier 1 data which has a high degree of uncertainty.
More accurate data are not available as the focus of the research is site agnostic and details on the type of land converted are not available.
The IPCC values are used to approximate the relative impact of direct land use change on life cycle carbon emissions.
Indirect land use (ILUC) change is not included in this LCA as there is a great deal of uncertainty related to current ILUC models.
In addition, the amount of indirect land use change is expected to be modest since the study targets use of fallowed land.
ILUC is important to consider, but more reliable land use models are needed to enable their use in life cycle assessments