Studying the life-cycle of wood products can help understand the cradle-to-grave total energy
and its potential environmental impact starting with extraction of materials from the earth to the
end of life. Calculation of the carbon footprint of timber and wood products considers all activities
associated with the use of the material or product maintenance, logging, transportation, fabrication,
processing, and disposal. Taiwan relies heavily on wood imports of as much as 99%. Between domestic
timber and imported timber, the most significant difference in the carbon footprint lies in the
carbon emissions resulting from the transport when obtaining raw materials. Hence, based on data
of major solid wood product imports of 2005~2014, this study estimated the CO2 emissions from
transport. Results indicate that the average CO2 emitted annually from the transport of Taiwan’s
imported solid wood products was 67,000 metric tons (mt) from bulk carriers and 309,000 mt
from container ships. The amounts of CO2 emitted during the transport of every cubic meter of
solid wood product were decided mainly by the shipping distance and type of carriers. Transporting
every cubic meter of solid wood product resulted in 3.18 to 47.69 kg m-3 CO2 emissions by
bulk carriers and 14.52 to 217.55 kg m-3 emissions by container ships. As this paper estimates the
carbon emissions produced during the transport of solid wood products, its results can contribute
to estimations of a product’s carbon footprint. This study also lays the groundwork on which the
efficacy of minimizing CO2 emission levels is calculated when encouraging the use of domestically
produced timber in the future.