Manufacturing Energy and Process Contributions to Cradle-to-Gate Carbon Footprints of Solid Wood Flooring

Factory-gate carbon footprints of finished wood flooring are shaped by material supply, manufacturing energy, transport, finishing, packaging and waste treatment. This study compared solid wood flooring (SWF) and solid wood flooring for underfloor heating (HWF) produced within one enterprise under a common cradle-to-gate (A1–A3) framework. Process contributions were evaluated alongside evidence provenance, allocation sensitivity, paired epistemic uncertainty and deterministic mitigation screening. Baseline GWP100 was 14.18 kg CO2e m−2 for SWF and 17.54 kg CO2e m−2 for HWF. HWF-specific carbonization-kiln electricity and heat-treatment natural gas together contributed approximately 2.91 kg CO2e m−2, accounting for most of the manufacturing-stage difference. Across 100,000 paired draws, the median HWF–SWF difference was 3.30 kg CO2e m−2 under area allocation and 2.88 kg CO2e m−2 under mass allocation within the registered epistemic parameter model. The central combined mitigation scenario reduced baseline GWP100 by 32.61% for SWF and 33.99% for HWF, while wood materials remained the largest residual process group. HWF-specific heat treatment was therefore the principal source of the additional manufacturing burden, while lower-carbon electricity, material efficiency and transport reduction offered further mitigation potential.