Overview
ISO 13391-3:2025 - "Wood and wood-based products - Greenhouse gas dynamics - Part 3: Displacement of greenhouse gas emissions" (First edition, 2025) provides a standardized methodology to quantify greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from alternative products and to calculate the displacement potential of wood and wood-based products. The standard supports organizations that want to understand, commit to, or contribute to climate change mitigation by assessing how using wood-based products can avoid GHG emissions outside the wood value chain.
Key topics and requirements
The standard sets out core technical elements required for robust displacement assessments:
- Methodology for emissions from alternative products - approaches to determine counterfactual GHG emissions for products that would fulfil the same function as the wood-based product.
- Displacement factor - methods to calculate the displacement factor, including specific guidance for wood-based products.
- Displacement potential - aggregation rules for calculating avoided emissions across volumes of wood-based products.
- System boundaries - requirements for defining temporal, geographic and life-cycle boundaries.
- Functional unit and final use - guidance on choosing comparable functional units and accounting for end-use variations.
- Data quality and reporting - minimum expectations for data sources, transparency and reporting of assumptions and results.
- Situations without displacement - treatment of cases where substitution does not lead to net avoided emissions.
- Annex A (informative) - indicative displacement factors to support application (non-normative).
The standard emphasizes that displacement assessments are informed by life cycle assessment (LCA) comparisons and are distinct from direct value-chain emissions; counterfactual emissions are not part of organizational GHG inventory reporting.
Applications and users
ISO 13391-3 is intended for a wide range of users:
- Manufacturers and product developers evaluating material choices (e.g., wood vs. steel/concrete) to optimize climate outcomes.
- Procurement and sustainability teams seeking to include displacement potential in procurement criteria and low-carbon purchasing.
- Policy makers and public authorities assessing the climate contribution of forest-based industries and material substitution strategies.
- Consultants, LCA practitioners and certification bodies performing comparative LCAs or advising on climate claims and product environmental footprints.
- Forest sector organizations integrating displacement into broader greenhouse gas dynamics (complementary to ISO 13391-1 and ISO 13391-2).
Related standards
- ISO 13391-1 (terms/overview) and ISO 13391-2 (value-chain GHG dynamics) - complementary parts of the ISO 13391 series.
- Life cycle assessment (LCA) standards and GHG accounting guidance used to inform displacement calculations.
Keywords: ISO 13391-3:2025, greenhouse gas dynamics, displacement potential, wood-based products, LCA, displacement factor, greenhouse gas emissions.
Open preview (PDF)Wood and wood-based products — Greenhouse gas dynamics — Part 3: Displacement of greenhouse gas emissions
