The carbon ledger
Conservative, defensible arithmetic for what a reused pallet actually saves — written so it can survive a sustainability auditor rather than impress a brochure reader.
Request a ledger for your volume
Give us the annual quantity and we will send the arithmetic for your own reporting, with the assumptions attached.
- Avoided CO₂e
- 1.62 kg per reuse
- Board feet
- 32 bf per GMA unit
- Trips added
- 5–7 typical
- Approach
- Deliberately conservative
Every number here is on the low side on purpose. A sustainability claim that cannot survive scrutiny is worse than no claim at all.
The core figures
| Quantity | Figure | What it covers | Why it is conservative |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avoided emissions per reuse | 1.62 kg CO₂e | Lumber production, milling and assembly of the new-build pallet not manufactured | Excludes avoided landfill methane and avoided transport of new stock |
| Lumber kept in service | 32 board feet | A standard GMA 48×40 unit | Measured on the low end of observed board thickness |
| Trips added per repair cycle | 5–7 | Useful journeys gained by repairing rather than replacing | Our own fleet data shows 6.8 average; we publish 5 |
| Diverted mass | 35 lb per unit | Weight kept out of landfill per cycle | Dry weight at 15% MC, not as-received |
| End-of-life recovery | 96% | Material recovery before any energy use | Counts only material streams, not fuel |
What we explicitly do not count
- Avoided landfill methane. Wood decomposing anaerobically generates methane; counting it would roughly double our headline figure. We leave it out because the decay fraction is genuinely uncertain.
- Carbon storage in the wood itself. Real, but accounting conventions disagree about who may claim it, so we do not.
- Avoided transport of new pallets from a mill to you.
- Our own operational emissions are subtracted, not ignored: grinder, chambers, forklifts and fleet diesel all come off the total before we publish it.
What it looks like at scale
| Annual units | Reuses at 5 trips | Net CO₂e avoided | Board feet in service | Tons diverted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | 5,000 | 7.0 t | 32,000 bf | 87 t |
| 5,000 | 25,000 | 35.0 t | 160,000 bf | 437 t |
| 25,000 | 125,000 | 175.0 t | 800,000 bf | 2,187 t |
| 100,000 | 500,000 | 700.0 t | 3,200,000 bf | 8,750 t |
Rounded. Your actual trip count is the biggest variable — we will use your real data if you have it rather than our default of five.
Draw it as a Grain Index card
Type your quantity into the Grain Index and it returns the ledger alongside your spec's unique grain signature. Oddly satisfying for something that is just arithmetic.
Open the Grain IndexWhere does 1.62 kg come from?
It is derived from published lifecycle factors for softwood pallet manufacture, cross-checked against our own lumber and assembly inputs, then rounded down. We will send the working to anybody who asks.
Can we use these figures in our ESG report?
Yes, and we will provide them on letterhead with assumptions attached. We would rather you cite a figure you can defend than a bigger one you cannot.
Do you have a Scope 3 position?
We can report the emissions associated with your pallet flow through us, including our fleet, as a Scope 3 input. Ask a coordinator.
Evidence appendix
The arithmetic and the audit trail, in full. Every figure here is rounded down on purpose — a sustainability claim that cannot survive scrutiny is worse than no claim at all.
Where every pound of intake goes
| Stream | Destination | Share of intake mass | Verified by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reusable whole | Grading and resale | 71% | Unit counts + weighbridge |
| Repairable | Repair benches | 20% | Bench lot records |
| Board harvest | Repair stock for other units | 3% | Internal transfer tickets |
| Remanufacture | Cut-downs, crate components, collar panels, furniture | 2% | Shop records |
| Material grind | Mulch, bedding, path and arena fiber | 3% | Grind batch weights |
| Industrial fuel | Regional boiler — never called recycling | 1% | Outbound scale tickets |
| Metal | Scrap recycler by weight | <1% | Scrap receipts |
| Landfill | — | 0.0% | Quarterly third-party audit since 2016 |
2025 averages by mass. Landfill has no row because it has no tonnage. Part of how that stays true is refusing material we cannot route: painted, stained or pressure-treated lumber, engineered panel, and anything contaminated with food residue, chemicals or hydrocarbons.
The carbon ledger method
| Quantity | Figure | What it covers | Why it is conservative |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avoided emissions per reuse | 1.62 kg CO₂e | Lumber production, milling and assembly of the new-build pallet not manufactured | Excludes avoided landfill methane and avoided transport of new stock |
| Net of our own operations | ≈1.4 kg CO₂e | After grinder, chambers, forklifts and fleet diesel | This is the figure we will put in writing |
| Lumber kept in service | 32 board feet | A standard GMA 48×40 unit | Measured at the low end of observed board thickness |
| Trips added per repair cycle | 5–7 | Useful journeys gained by repairing rather than replacing | Our fleet data shows 6.8 average; we publish 5 |
| Diverted mass | 35 lb per unit per cycle | Weight kept out of landfill | Dry weight at 15% MC, not as-received |
| Material recovery at end of life | 96% | Material streams only | Excludes the 1% that becomes industrial fuel |
Deliberately low. We leave out avoided landfill methane (which would roughly double the headline) and in-wood carbon storage, because both are contested in accounting conventions and a claim that cannot survive an auditor is worse than no claim.
What the fiber line produces
| Product | Screen | Feedstock restriction | Goes to | Minimum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Landscape mulch | 1"–2" single grind | Pallet wood only; no C&D, no painted, no engineered panel | Municipal and commercial landscaping, residential bulk | 10 cu yd delivered |
| Playground & path fiber | Double grind, fines screened out | HT stock only | Trails, dog parks, riding arenas | 10 cu yd |
| Animal bedding | Fine grind, kiln run, triple screened | HT stock only, segregated at the grinder | Equine and livestock operations | 10 cu yd |
| Arena fiber | Coarse, de-fined | HT stock only | Riding arenas, paddocks | 20 cu yd |
| Boiler biomass | 3" minus hog fuel, moisture declared | Takes the chemically treated and unknown-origin stream | Regional industrial steam and co-generation | By the ton |
Three magnetic separation passes — one after each size change — plus a hand inspection of the finished windrow before anything is loaded. Grinding does not remove steel; it exposes new steel, which is why the magnets come after every stage rather than only at the start. Iron-oxide colourant available on landscape mulch; natural undyed always available and recommended for vegetable beds.
The reuse hierarchy we actually follow
- 01
Gate & segregation
Weighbridge ticket, then sorting by treatment type and origin before anything is cut. Painted, treated or unknown-origin wood is separated here and never enters the mulch or bedding lines. Contaminated material is refused.
- 02
Breakdown & inspection
Units are broken down and inspected board by board. Deck boards are flexed by hand; anything that creaks, splits at a nail hole or shows end-grain separation comes off.
- 03
Stringer judgement
Cracks longer than a third of the stringer depth, or any crack crossing a notch, send the member to the plug bench or condemn it. This single check decides most of the economics.
- 04
Repair & re-nail
Board swap, companion board, plug, plate, trim. Then every fastener on the unit is driven or replaced — the invisible half of the work, and the part cheap yards skip.
- 05
Moisture & square
Pin meter on random units per lot, reading recorded. Diagonals measured; out-of-square beyond ½" is corrected, not shipped. Above 19% MC the load waits in the dry stack or goes through the kiln.
- 06
Grade, stamp & lot
Grade, build date and lot in soy ink on a stringer face, so a disputed load traces back to the bench and shift that built it. Heat treatment and IPPC marking for anything crossing a border.