Life Cycle Assessement (LCA) is being used increasingly as a tool to structure information on the environmental characteristics of material and processes. This paper is based on the experience gained from our LCA studies on treated wood products over the last 4 years. The comprehensive and logical examination af the information available on treated timber provided by LCA has allowed identification of gaps in our present state of knowledge. There is a large quantity of data available of preservatives and treated timber from past and present studies but, unfortunately, due to constrains in the original experimental design or recording data, much of it is of only limited use in environmental assessments. However, in many cases, only modest change in the design or parameter recorded would be needed to greatly increase their value for environmental impact assessments, such as LCA. A number of specific examples are used to illustrate these points in the paper, and possibilities for future developments in LCA are elaborated.

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