Business and Society 2.0

People think paper making is a great energy consumer. In fact it was some years ago, but technology has played is role, things changes but the idea stays the same. Looking more closely, we will see some interesting facts and figures about paper making and the usage of energy. On average it takes 500 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity to produce 200kg of paper, the average amount of paper that each of us consume each year. "The European pulp and paper industry is strongly in favour of renewable energy and has declared an intent that commits the industry to increase the share of biomass-based energy in its total primary energy consumption from 49% in 2001 to 56% in 2010"(1). Does 500 kilowatt-hours sound a lot? Well, let´s look to other energy consumption of our day to day life. 500 kWh is equivalent to: • Powering one computer continuously for five months • Burning a 60w light bulb continuously for one year • The energy consumed by a typical household leaving its electronic e

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

It is a prejudice the idea that paper is bad for the environment. In fact, the pulp and paper industry is one of the few that makes really sustainable products. The exception is coming from countries not yet commited to protect their forest resources, but they are decreasing. This is not the case in Europe were the forest area is increasing each year. The rate of replanted trees in good managed forests are three to four times more than the cutting pace. This means that the forests are growing and also renewed by young trees which absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere then older trees. Beeing paper a wood product it will store carbon with its lifetime. In adition, most of the forests are certified by independent and non profit organizations. Two of the most known entities that certifies that paper used is coming from sustainable forests are: - the Forest Stewardship Council ( FSC ) and - the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification ( PEFC ). According to FSC, "the amount

Paper Industry is changing towards a "new generation" of paper grades, pulp and paper manufacturing technologies. It is a fact, the trend of paper consumption in the world is going down. Print volumes went down since 1995 almost 20%, by the use of Internet and other digital media. Between 1995 and 2020 the worldwide print volumes are expected to decrease by about 30% (1). This general trend does not tell what is going in the industry and what are the expectations for the future. Newspaper Publishers have probably experienced the competitiveness of the media industry and the change of consumer habits using much more information available online. However, some publishers presented strong operations like Prisa Group, the owners of El País, the spanish newspaper that has increased circulation the last years. According to Pedro Garcia Guillén, General Manager of El País (2), "the circulation and number of readers has grown last years, in spite of competition from newspapers a