• Li, Ling
  University of Maine, School of Forest Resources
  
• Wei, Xinyuan
  Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  
• Zhao, Jianheng
  University of Maine, School of Forest Resources
  
• Hayes, Daniel
  University of Maine, School of Forest Resources
  
• Daigneault, Adam
  University of Maine, School of Forest Resources
  
• Weiskittel, Aaron
  University of Maine, Center for Research on Sustainable Forests & School of Forest Resources
  
• Kizha, Anil Raj
  University of Maine, School of Forest Resources
  
• O'Neill, Shane R.
  University of Maine, School of Forest Resources
  

Harvested wood products (HWPs) in-use, disposed to landfill, and the charcoal created by biomass fuel burning substantially store carbon and potentially mitigate the greenhouse gas effect. To quantify the HWPs carbon storage, we developed a carbon accounting framework, which has the ability to incorporate the influence of technological advancement on HWPs carbon storage. Through applying this framework together with the wood harvesting data of Maine, USA during the period of 1901–2019, we concluded that the current HWPs carbon pool size is 52 Tg C, which is 11% of the carbon stored in the entire forestry sector and wood products of Maine, USA. Technological advancement potentially increases the HWPs carbon storage by as much as 44% to 75 Tg C. In addition, the average net annual carbon sink can be increased from 0.44 Tg C to 0.63 Tg C. Production of innovative wood products with long service lives plays the most important role in expanding the HWPs carbon pool; however, the higher processing efficiency and recycling rate are less important.