Page 12 - p2p_sum11

The complexity of the environmental debate and the wide choice of business papers available pose real problems for business buyers who want to make the right choice but don't have time to unravel the competing claims of different papers.

In order to help businesses choose the most sustainable options, theWorldWide Fund for Nature (WWF) has launched an online database that ranks papers according to the source of the fbre used, recycled content, CO

who are being invited to rate and post their products’ environmental impacts online. Participating manufacturers include Arjowiggins; ITC Limited Paper Boards and Specialty Papers Division; Mondi; M-real; Lenzing Papier; SCA; Steinbeis Papier; Tullis Russell; and UPM. At launch there were 100 papers with Good or Excellent environmental scores in all the main pulp and paper categories, including coated and uncoated papers, newsprint, tissue, packaging and board papers, speciality papers and several types of pulp.

One way paper users can reduce the costs associated with paper use is to use a lighter paper stock than standard 80gsm. Portucel Soporcel markets a number of lighter papers including Navigator Eco (75gsm) and the market leading Discovery brand (70 and 75gsm), which saw sales grow by more than 10% in 2010.

Lighter choices are also available from Mondi (Maestro, from 60gsm) and m-real, which recently

launched a 65gsm paper called SAVE!. To manufacture the FSC-certifed, European-made paper, m-real uses 19% less wood, 38% less water, 18% less energy and 10% less packaging than 80gsm. In doing so, it generates 25% fewer emissions to water, 31 emissions to the air and 18% less At the time of going to press, SAVE!’s future is uncertain due to m-real’s decision to get out of the offce paper market – a move that also has signifcant implications for the popular Evolve brand of recycled papers.

This argument has some validity (in relation to the European industry), though surely International Paper went too far when, in a recent press release promoting its 24-page 'Little Book of Commonsense' , it suggested that a valid response to ‘Think twice before you print this email’ notices was to say “I can be proud to print because when paper is used a whole lot more trees are planted”. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

Another of Two Sides’ aims is to turn a spotlight onto the environmental credentials of the IT industry. Historically, there has been an imbalance in people’s willingness to accept unsubstantiated green claims made by technology companies (and blindness to the social and environmental impact of the manufacture, disposal and recycling of electronic devices) and the speed with which they condemn paper use. Lately, the environmental cost of digital communications has come under greater scrutiny – a good example being Greenpeace’s How Green is Your Data? report in which it criticised cloud computing companies, such as Facebook, Amazon, Google and Yahoo, for failing to disclose the amount and source of energy used to power their datacentres. Others have attempted to measure the environmental impact of email communications. The Guardian 's Green Living Blog estimates that the CO

2 equivalent value of 4g.What this means, according to the blog, is that “a typical year of incoming mail for a business user – including sending, fltering and reading – creates a carbon footprint of around 135kg. That’s over 1% of a relatively green 10-tonne lifestyle and equivalent to driving 200 miles in an average car.”

On the other side of the argument, the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland recently attempted to calculate the greenhouse gas emission associated with daily newspapers, magazines, books, photobooks and direct mail in a study sponsored by various paper companies. It concluded that print products account for about 1% of the climate impact of consumption by a typical Finnish household compared to 28% for housing, 16% for food and 13% for transport. Clearly this is not a like-for-like comparison (and both calculations need proper scrutiny), but it does suggest that the paper:digital choice is not as clear-cut as has been portrayed.

How, then, should business react? If it were just a question of the environmental impact of the greenest papers versus digital communications, there might be a case for maintaining current levels of paper consumption. But, there’s more to it than that. If we go back to the case outlined in the frst paragraph, the fnancial savings on offer from e-billing make it a no-brainer. The European Commission estimates that moving from paper to electronic invoices could lead to savings of 40 billion euros across the EU. And that’s just from e-invoicing. Organisations can make further savings by implementing electronic workfows and electronic document management systems and by controlling offce print to reduce unnecessary paper use and in doing so reduce paper consumption by as much as 30%.

The print and paper industries are hugely important for the European economy, just like the postal providers, but for better or worse, the way

information is distributed and consumed is changing fast. According to the Gartner report Survey Analysis: Consumer Digital Reading Preferences Reveal the Exaggerated Death of Paper , people now spend almost as much time reading from a screen as they do from the printed page. Businesses can’t ignore this trend and nor can the paper industry. Two Sides is right to question the assumptions people make about the paper industry and the unsubstantiated green claims of IT companies. It is also right to highlight the European paper industry’s improving environmental record. But equally businesses are right to explore more effcient and cost-effective ways of creating, processing, managing and storing information. Paper is still a wonderful and, for many applications, an irreplaceable medium but, sadly, the interests of the paper industry and its customers are pulling in opposite directions.

Page 12 - p2p_sum11_flip

Page 12 - p2p_sum11_flip