Letter: Paper industry can do better
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Paper industry can do better
Sir: Richard North ("Greenpeace, please grow up!", 26 September) referred to a report on the pulp and paper industry by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). While we welcome Mr North's praise of our report Towards a Sustainable Paper Cycle, we need to clarify certain points.
Richard North implies that IIED has given a blanket seal of approval to the paper industry, which he considers to be "more or less on track" with respect to environmental performance. In fact, our report singles out a number of areas where industry is clearly not on track.
For example, the report finds that paper is a net contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, despite industry claims of the carbon uptake potential of plantations. This is mainly due to high energy consumption in processing and methane emissions from paper that is landfilled.
The report also finds that industry environmental performance is highly variable, with unacceptable levels of emissions from some plants in all major producer countries.
The report advocates independent (third-party) certification of paper products and is supportive of eco-labelling initiatives, whereas much of the industry has traditionally been hostile to these approaches or insisted on purely voluntary self-monitoring.
Our report concludes that there is very little evidence of difference, in terms of environmental impact, between elemental chlorine-free (ECF) and totally chlorine-free (TCF) bleaching. However we do oppose the use of elemental chlorine, a traditional bleaching agent.
And on the morally contested issue of paper consumption, we argue that industry should respond to consumer concerns about waste and should rethink what paper use is actually for, moving towards a service-oriented approach targeted at meeting needs.
Finally, with respect to sources of funding for the study, your readers may be interested to know that over 40 per cent of the research budget came from non-industry sources, including the European Commission and the International Finance Corporation (a United Nations agency). Additional funding was raised by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
RICHARD SANDBROOK
Executive Director, IIED
London WC1
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments