By Justin Toland, Contributing Editor, PPI magazine
BRUSSELS,
Dec. 15, 2008 (RISI) -
The rise of the carbon footprint as a means of benchmarking the greenhouse gas emissions of both businesses and consumers has been rapid and seemingly unstoppable. And, as a timely 'mini-summit' organised by CEPI during the recent European Paper Week in Brussels showed, the debate is now moving from the hype phase to a more realistic assessment of the use and limitations of carbon footprinting.
On the one hand we already have the CEPI framework and the publicly available specification, PAS 2050, with an ISO standard also in the pipeline (work on the proposed ISO 14067 is scheduled for completion in March 2011). Yet, on the other, many retailers are starting to question the value of carbon labelling consumer products since (as Paul Rowsome of Carrefour has stated) only a minority of customers look at carbon labels, while the labels themselves are prone to inaccuracies, are not necessarily the cheapest way to reduce emissions, and can overlook other environmental impacts.
As energy and environment director, CEPI, Marco Mensink pointed out during the mini-summit, there is no such thing as a 'carbon neutral' product, only one where the carbon emissions needed to make it have been neutralized.
This does not mean that carbon footprinting is a waste of time, however. Dr Kay Williams, one of the scientists who developed the UK's PAS 2050 standard explained that it allows a company to see 'hotspots' of emissions and take appropriate steps. "It is important to recognise that carbon footprinting is not just about labelling products," said director, Edge, Michael Sturges. His organisation has conducted two case studies in this new field. The first, sponsored by the Periodical Publishers' Association (PPA) attempted to quantify the carbon footprint of the UK magazine publishing sector in general terms: the next step will be to develop a tool to allow individual publishers to calculate the carbon footprint of their specific publications.
The second case study is a potential good news story for paper. Edge carried out a lifecycle assessment of standard printed, web-based and tablet e-paper newspapers. The results revealed that while reading news online for 10 minutes produced a smaller carbon footprint than reading a newspaper, the reverse is true if you read the news online for 30 minutes, because of the energy consumed by the computer, etc.
"Carbon wise, paper is one of the best products to sell," confirmed Energy and Environment Director, CEPI, Marco Mensink, adding that pulp and paper "is the first sector with a well-received and internationally used framework for carbon footprints."
A compelling reason for the paper industry to push carbon footprinting: probably not. A sign that the industry should have nothing to fear from the footprinting movement: most definitely.
RISI is the leading source of global news for the forest products industry.
Click here to learn more about our news products and services.
Click here to see all RISI's pulp and paper news products.
