Time to log the carbon

The Robert Horne Group says papermakers must come clean on their CO2. Julian Rollins reports.

Buying paper used to boil down to a question of taking either the rough or the smooth. Go for a clear conscience from an environmental point of view and you had to accept products that were rather… well, basic. It’s not like that anymore.

If you’re reading this on a hard copy of Green Futures, for example, you are looking at paper that’s glossy but is also mostly recycled fibre. It’s printed on paper from the Revive range, which now has a commanding position in a niche market, says its supplier the Robert Horne Group.

Bob Latham, Robert Horne’s commercial director, says he has seen the recycled arm of its business increase by more than 50% over the last year. “People are hungry for product information and eager to demonstrate their environmental duty of care,” he says. Britain’s best and brightest companies now insist that their paper and print must pass a demanding set of environmental standards.

The concept of ‘green paper’ isn’t as straightforward as the layman might imagine. The Revive range, for example, includes 13 products, which vary from 30% to 100% recycled material. For most grades of recycled paper you need not only post-consumer waste fibre, but some virgin wood pulp too, points out Latham, because each time paper is recycled, fibres degrade. 

And there’s no doubt that recycled paper is responsible for fewer carbon emissions, say studies done by the Waste and Resources Action Plan. Latham argues that it’s this ‘carbon footprint’ behind the whole papermaking process that companies now need to address.

For Robert Horne this has meant putting in place a target to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 20% by 2010. The company will first look for energy savings and then at the feasibility of using renewable energy. A big saving will come from a rethink of the Robert Horne fleet. Working with their truck suppliers, the company has come up with the idea of double-deckers, which mean that large format products can be stacked on top of pallets of paper, rather than taking up a whole vehicle themselves. And the group is working on logistics, which should reduce mileage by 25% within three years.

The programme will also put suppliers under scrutiny. “We want suppliers to know that, wherever we can, we will be looking to reduce the energy intensity of what they do,” emphasises Latham. But this does mean that much of the work will be done at arm’s length - and it’s a long arm too, by the nature of the business. For example, Revive is made by mills in the UK, Spain and France - and any virgin pulp content comes from even further afield.

Of course, distance isn’t necessarily a carbon evil. Much of the original raw material now comes from FSC-certified plantations in South America but, says Latham, carrying 30,000 tonnes of pulp across the Atlantic to Europe by ship has a lighter per tonne carbon footprint than moving it within Europe by road.

So, is it time to start thinking about carbon footprint labeling for all paper products - as Tesco is for everything it sells? Latham’s not altogether convinced. “When it comes to carbon the supply chain is so complex that a recognised eco-label would be very difficult in the immediate future,” he says. “Getting hundreds of paper mills around the world to agree on it will be a tall order. Where would you start from? When you plant the seed, or when you harvest the tree?” However, the group is actively pursuing a scoping project for such an industry standard.

He’s more enthusiastic about what printers can do on their own carbon footprints, as they’re simply measuring one factory process rather than several dozen throughout the supply chain. “Beacon Press has done this very successfully,” he says.

For now, the best we can hope for is what Latham calls the ‘visibility’ of the issue: “By asking all our suppliers to quantify carbon inputs from the point of manufacture of the paper, I am certain we can raise the bar across the whole industry.”

This Beacon Press partner page has been donated to the Robert Horne Group.

Julian Rollins is a freelance journalist specialising in environmental issues.

3 May 2007

Julian Rollins