The pulp and paper industry makes heavy demands on our natural environment, consumes large amounts of energy and produces a significant amount of waste. Because of this, the industry has drawn much attention from environmental regulators and advocacy groups alike demanding that it improve on its environmental stewardship. One consequence of this scrutiny is that the number of environmentally friendly (or “green”) paper options is steadily on the rise, accompanied by a bewildering number of claims that any responsible paper buyer needs to decipher.
Chlorine Free! Made with Wind Power! 100% PCW! These are a just a few of the many attributes being touted on or about ‘environmental’ or ‘green’ papers today. To help navigate the world of green paper, FSC Canada is pleased to provide a quick reference guide that seeks to shed some useful light on some of the more common claims that paper specifiers and buyers encounter.
The World of Eco-Labels
Illegal Sources
Other Paper Resources
The environmental benefits of a particular paper are often communicated through use of an “eco-label”, such as the “Mobius” (also known as the recycling) loop.
Eco-labelling is a generic term for the environmental performance claims connected with a variety of products and services. Eco-labels intend to communicate some form of environmentally friendly attribute of the labelled product or service, such as being natural, organic, recyclable, low in energy demand to produce or to run, containing recycled content, and so on. Unless certified by an independent or third-party organization, one cannot be certain that eco-labels deliver what they claim. In addition, what information the label actually intends to convey may be more of an inference than a documented or understood fact. And even when the meaning is known, one often does not really know whether the claim is truly more environmentally friendly than a competing claim.
Public concern with the credibility and impartiality of eco-labels has led to the development of public and private organizations providing third-party labelling. Examples of these include the Canadian “Eco-Logo” which can be found on products in over 300 product categories across North America, or The Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC) product labels used to identify wood and paper products coming from independently certified, responsibly managed forests.
For paper, the most common eco-labels indicate environmental benefits such as:
Consumers Union Guide to Environmental Labelswww.eco-labels.org/home.cfm
Forest certification is a voluntary tool available to forest management organizations wanting to demonstrate corporate responsibility by having their forest planning and operations certified against a “sustainable” forest management standard that goes beyond regulatory requirements. Different certification systems take different degrees of environmental, economic and/or social values into consideration and accordingly attract different mixes of public and NGO support Whether or not any certification system actually delivers sustainable forests remains to be seen and will not be known for many decades to come.
The third-party certification of the forest management practices of one or group of forest managers means no more than that they are achieving the level of performance that is mandated by the particular forest management certification system that they have voluntarily adopted. In North America, the three dominant forest management certification systems are operated by the Canadian Standards Association, the Forest Stewardship Council and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.
To ensure the fair and accurate use of their eco-label, a certification standard should include a chain-of-custody (CoC) system. Through the CoC process a forest product is tracked from a tree in a certified forest through all the steps of processing and production until it reaches the end-user.
There are three levels of forest and chain-of-custody certification:
First-party certification is an internal or self assessment by an organization that its systems and practices meet the requirements of a certain standard.
Second-party certification is an assessment by an external entity that has a stake in the organization’s conformance to the standard in question.
Third-party certification is an independent evaluation by a qualified auditor of an organization’s conformance to an independently established standard.
In general, third party certification is considered the highest level of certification and is particularly valuable where the performance standards are fairly complex and/or rigorous.
While many forest management standards have been developed, the most commonly used standards in North America include:
Canadian Standards Association www.csa-international.org/product_areas/forest_products_marking/
The Forest Stewardship CouncilCanada: www.fsccanada.orgUSA: www.fscus.org
Sustainable Forest Initiative www.aboutsfi.org/core.asp**The CSA and SFI standards have applied for and been endorsed by (PEFC)
For reports comparing the different certification system, visit:
For more information visit:
Dovetail Partners Inc. Information on Certification and Specific Standardswww.dovetailinc.org/Cert.htmlwww.dovetailinc.org/DovetailCSAReport.htmlwww.dovetailinc.org/DovetailPEFCReport.htmlwww.dovetailinc.org/DovetailSFIReport.htmlwww.dovetailinc.org/DovetailFSCReport.html
Certification Canadawww.certificationcanada.org/english/index.php
A commonly used eco-label in Canada is that of the The Environmental Choice Program (ECP). The ECP is a multi-attribute environmental certification system developed by the Environment Canada. The Program's official symbol of certification - the EcoLogo - is used to identify products and services that are environmentally preferable. The ECP develops and promotes standards of environmental performance against which products and services can be assessed. These standards are called “Certification Criteria Documents” (or CCDs) and contain the exact environmental and performance requirements an applicant must meet to become ECP certified. Certification is done for over 300 categories of products and services such as:
The Environmental Choice Program requires third party verification of compliance to ECP certification criteria as a condition for certification and licensing. This process is intended to provide the program credibility and includes:
Third party auditing for the program is carried out by TerraChoice Environmental Marketing, an environmental program and consulting services firm. Applicants are visited by a TerraChoice auditor who conducts a verification audit.
Environmental Choice Program Homepagehttp://www.environmentalchoice.com/English/ECP%20Footer/About%20the%20Program
Recycled paper is derived wholly or partially from waste papers that are thoroughly cleansed (often to remove inks), re-pulped, and made into new paper. Recycled paper can contain a mixture of virgin wood fibre (new wood fibre never before used), pre-consumer waste, and post-consumer waste.
Pre-consumer waste consists of by-products left over and reclaimed from such processes as paper production, paper conversion or from the printing process and, as the name indicates, has not been used by the end-consumer.
Post-consumer waste (PCW) consists of fibre derived from paper products used by the end consumer and then reclaimed through recycling programs. Most white paper is made from sorted, clean paper that is commercially collected from large users such as public and private secftor offices. Most of the fibre derived from the paper that is collected through the recycling component of municipal solid waste collection services is unsuited for remanufacture into what are clled fine papers, i.e. multi-purpose paper for offices and sheet and web stock used by printers. Using both pre-consumer and post-consumer waste in the production of paper is environmentally beneficial because doing so diverts paper waste from landfills and reduces our need for virgin wood fibre. However, those who concern themselves with the finer points of sustainability, or the greening of society, place a higher value on post-consumer waste. Many of them feel that if pre-consumer or industrial waste were ranked equally with post-consumer waste, there would be less incentive for industrial processors to reduce the creation of waste during production. Not reducing waste means and thus a lost opportunity to reduce energy consumption, water use and the volume of other consumables such as ink, all of which place a higher load on our natural environment.
The percentage of recycled content is specified on recycled papers. For example, a paper specifying ��% Recycled, 30% PCW” means that 50% of the total product content is recycled, where 30% is from post-consumer waste and 20% is from pre-consumer waste. The remaining 50% is from virgin wood fibre.
The Mobius or recycled loop is in the public domain, i.e. nobody own the rights to it, it is not licensed by anyone or to anyone and thus there is no commercial incentive for anyone to police the accuracy of its use or the truth of the claims that it conveys, unless it use has been certified by independent third-party auditors, as is the case when it appears as a part of an FSC label.
Today consumers widely recognize the recycled (or mobius) loop as being synonymous with recycling and recycled content. While the Canadian Standards Association’s (CSA) Guideline on Environmental Labelling document discourages the use of unsubstantiated and vague claims, there is no official body that verifies claims making use of the mobius loop.
The actual process of paper recycling has both its pros and cons. Supporters of paper recycling point to the reduced air and water pollution, lower energy and water requirements, conservation of forest resources, protection of wildlife and biodiversity, and diversion of waste from landfills as the main benefits of paper recycling. Detractors point to the high cost of de-inking plants, the harmful bleaches often used in de-inking, the use of fossil fuel energy, increased solid waste in the form of “sludge”, and the limitation of papers with high recycled content in delivering the required strength or brightness for some publication papers, particularly coated.
Metafore Fiber Cycle Project www.metafore.org/index.php?p=Metafore_Fiber_Cycle_Project&s=264
Friends of the Earth – “Paper Recycling: Exposing the Myths”www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/paper_recycling.html
Paper Recycling Association of the Pulp and Paper Products Councilwww.pppc.org/en/1_0/index.html
There are varying degrees of chlorine use that can carry the “chlorine free” claim:
Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF) The ECF bleaching process utilizes chlorine dioxide or sodium hypochlorite instead of chlorine gas as a bleaching agent. Even though chlorine dioxide has "chlorine" in its name, its chemistry is different from chlorine gas. ECF paper takes a positive step towards reducing dioxin releases. ECF papers may also include recycled-content fiber.
Processed Chlorine Free (PCF) PCF uses oxygen-based compounds instead of chlorine-based compounds in the bleaching process. PCF products contain post consumer recycled fibre content that has been re-bleached using this process. Since it is impossible to tell whether the recycled content has been bleached with chlorine in the past, PCF papers cannot be labeled totally chlorine-free.
Totally Chlorine Free (TCF) Is reserved for virgin fiber papers. TCF uses oxygen-based compounds instead of chlorine-based compounds in the virgin pulp bleaching process.
The Chlorine Free Products Associationwww.chlorinefreeproducts.org/
New Leaf Paper Terminology Guidewww.newleafpaper.com/terminology.html
Today energy requirements are being met by a variety of sources, not only by traditional fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. Renewable sources of energy are being increasingly used to meet energy needs. These energy sources include:
Each renewable energy source has its advantages and disadvantages. However, they are alternatives that can reduce, if not move us away from, the use of traditional non-renewable sources that have significant environmental consequences.
Re-Energywww.re-energy.ca/t_renewablebasics.shtml
The David Suzuki Foundationwww.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/Energy/Renewables/default.asp
Alternative fibres are fibres that are not wood-based. Potential alternatives may include, but are not limited to, kenaf, hemp, or agriculture residues. The use of alternative fibres in paper reduces the need for the extraction of forest resources. The development of fine paper based wholly or in part on alternative fibre in North America is in its very early stages. Although alternative fibre-based papers are a laudable goal, they remain just that for the time being.
Environmental Defence White Paper on Alternative Fibreswww.environmentaldefense.org/documents/1634_WP13.pdf
GreenBiz Report on Alternative Fibre Papers:www.greenbiz.com/toolbox/reports_third.cfm?LinkAdvID=1989
The terms “ancient or endangered forest friendly” and “old growth free” are used by Markets Initiative, an environmental advocacy organization founded by the BC chapters of Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, to identify wood and paper products that contain high post-consumer waste content, are processed or totally chlorine free, and whose virgin fibre content is FSC certified. The main thrust behind this terminology is to create a demand for products that reduce the need for wood extraction from previously unlogged forests or that contain forest resources which are being sustainably managed. There is stil some controversy over the identification of the boundaries of ancient or endangered forests and the definition of old growth but they are effective market campaign tools in that they are consumer-friendly in that lay persons feel that they instinctively know what is meant by them.
Markets Initiativewww.marketsinitiative.org/Greenpeace Internationalwww.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/forests/greenpeace-book-campaign/ancient-forest-friendly-paper
Much like genetically modified food, genetically modified (also know as genetically engineered or transgenic) trees are genetically manipulated through adding or removing specific genes from a tree species. The manipulation of a tree specie’s genetic make-up is done to develop traits such as herbicide tolerance, pest resistance, modified fibre quality and quantity, and altered growth and reproductive development.
The research and understanding of genetically engineering trees is still in its primary stages, however it is known that transgenic trees can and often spread beyond the boundaries of their host planatations, i.e. become invasive, thereby ‘contaminating’ and/or choking out native tree species and related wildlife, and consequently disrupting eco-systems with unintended consequences.
Government of Canada Bio Basicshttp://www.biobasics.gc.ca/english/View.asp?x=743
The David Suzuki Foundation - What are Transgenic Trees?http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Forests/Transgenic_trees.asp
Paper from illegal sources contains fibre originating from harvesting, processing or trade sources that do not conform to local, national or international law. Illegal logging activities include: timber theft; harvesting from lands that are protected or where harvesting is forbidden; harvesting protected species; over harvesting; gaining permission to harvest through corrupt means; failing to replant at required rates or replanting with low grade species; illegal processing; illegal transportation; and customs violations, including the falsification of documents.
EU Action Plan for Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Tradewww.ec.europa.eu/comm/development/body/theme/forest/initiative/docs/3_what_is_legal_timber_en.pdf#zoom=100
The Paper LifecycleClick to link
Environmental Papers Resource Sitewww.conservatree.com/
A Common Vision for Transforming the Paper Industry: Striving for Environmental and Social Sustainabilitywww.greenbiz.com/toolbox/tools_third.cfm?LinkAdvID=64056
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