What's In Your Paper's Carbon Footprint?

by Jim Ford of Climate for Ideas for the Paper Planet

If you hear it from some paper producers, not much really. The facts, though, tell a different story. The impact of paper on the climate is large and the total life cycle of paper means that paper is one of the most greenhouse gas intensive products we use on a daily basis. The EPN's new report, Carbon Neutral Paper: Fact or Fiction, helps to lay out the facts.

First, every paper production process and life cycle uses fossil fuels. Transport of materials, purchased energy from the grid, oil, coal and gas used at the mill to make energy are key examples. These emissions are essentially irreversible even over the longest term. The use of chemicals and fossil fuels to make paper, which are large, also have indirect emissions associated with them.

Second, making virgin paper uses large amounts of biomass, as we have discussed in this blog and the new report by EPN makes very clear. The very large majority of this biomass ends up in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Trees may grow again, but this depletion of the biomass in forests is in the short and medium terms also irreversible. Each time we cut down trees and burn them or allow them to decay we have to start the carbon sequestration process all over again, usually at rates of sequestration lower than what we had when the trees were in healthy forests. Thus, we are at a constant deficit relative to the other option: leaving the forests intact to continue to grow and sequester carbon. There are also impacts in the forest, in soils and forest debris that emit carbon when they are logged. No tree planting program reverses that impact.

Third, much of the paper we use ends up in landfills where the carbon in the paper is converted to methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Until we recycle all of our paper, or capture the methane released from landfills to use as an energy source, this remains a large source of climate-chaning greenhouse gases.

The answer that we propose is simple: seek Low Carbon papers. We need to understand our emissions, where they are in the process, what the relative emissions are and seek to reduce them. Some answers are simple: use recycled paper and use less paper. Some answers will require more time and dedication, like working with paper suppliers to ensure that forest management is the least impactful it can be where virgin wood is needed; improve the recycling system to divert as much paper back into a useful life and away from landfills; or reduce emissions from existing mills.

Editors Note: This is the fifth installment in an 8 week "What's In Your Paper?" series on the Paper Planet focusing on specific sectors of the paper industry or paper from specific Endangered Forest regions. Subscribe or check back each Wednesday for a new posting in this series.