Business and Society 2.0

Carbon Footprint is a measure of the impact that human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere, that have arisen through the manufacture and distribution of a product or service. Producing 200kg of paper, the average we each use every year, creates between 130–250kg of CO2 depending on the source of energy. This is comparable to many other small scale domestic activities, and is roughly equivalent to the CO2 produced by an average family car over a distance of 600 miles.While the main raw material of paper, trees, is a vast carbon store and the prime absorber of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the precise carbon footprint of the paper cycle is difficult to pinpoint as it depends on how the paper is made and the source of energy used in production. Nuclear, hydro, biofuel and geothermal energy, heavily used by some paper making countries, are all low carbon, while fossil-fuels are carbon intensive. &quo

According to a survey of professional media buyers, 70% of respondents perceived recycled paper to be better for the environment than virgin paper. It isn’t as straightforward as you might think. While recycled paper does reduce waste paper going to landfill, you must also consider paper’s full life cycle and not just the fibre source. Modern paper mills producing virgin fibre paper, whose energy source is nuclear, hydro or internally bio-fuelled, may well have a lower carbon footprint than a mill making recycled paper, powered by fossil fuels. And it’s important to remember that virgin fibre is always required to make recycled paper possible in the first place. For these reasons, it is very difficult to directly compare the environmental impact of recycled and virgin fibre paper. The paper industry has eight representatives in the UN’s list of the world’s 100 most sustainable companies, more than any other industry. Both virgin and recycled paper products can therefore have an equally