Carbon footprint estimate in the primary wood processing industry in El Salto, Durango

Introduction: The primary wood processing industry releases greenhouse gases (GHGs); their mitigation involves measuring the carbon footprint. Objective: To estimate the carbon footprint of two forestry companies dedicated to the primary transformation of wood.Materials and methods: Companies established as organizational boundaries L1 and L2 have two (Q1 and Q2) and one (D) sawmill, respectively. The operational limits were A1 (direct emissions from fossil fuel consumption), A2 (indirect emissions from electricity consumption) and A3 (emission sources not owned by L1 and L2). GHG emissions were calculated in two annuities with the method of using documented activity data and emission factors level 1. The annuities were compared with the Student’ t-test and Wilcoxon test, and the sawmills with the Kruskal-Wallis test.Results and discussion: The estimated carbon footprint for L1 was 480.06 tCO 2 e·year - 1 , where A1, A2 and A3 represented 29.32 %, 14.59 % and 56.09 %, respectively. L2 had a footprint of 230.56 tCO 2 e·year -1 of which 9.39 %, 11.78 % and 78.83 % corresponded to the categories A1, A2 and A3, respectively. The cumulative uncertainty was within a fair range of accuracy (±25 %). Only the direct GHG emissions between L1 annuities were statistically different (P < 0.05). Mechanical technology made the difference in GHG emissions among sawmills (P < 0.05).Conclusions: The carbon footprint is inherent to the energy used; energy management ensures the mitigation of GHG emissions.