Letters, feedback, get it off your chest: 22 September 2011
This week’s postbag is dominated with response to Tony Duncan’s report on the paper industry and governance, drawing mixed reactions.
Re: Trouble at mills plagues paper users - Print21 magazine feature
This is an interesting, if worrying article, which just about sums up the problems we have with the perception the general public has about our industry globally.
The biggest and most worrying feature, as detailed in your article, is the fact that this 'perception' is driven by those who gain most from it (e.g. power and IT/eMedia industry), and that underlying drive has been built up over the last twenty years and become absolutely accepted by the world's public, to the exclusion of all alternative thinking.
The thing I find amazing is that the environmental policies that we currently pursue globally are largely based on misinformation, poor or flawed research, opinion and guesswork - and pure commercialism - rather than environmental interest or care.
Recycling of paper (and wood products) is one example.
The only means mankind has of removing CO2 from air permanently is by sequestration, employing new tree growth and landfill coupled with whatever commercial interim practice that might pay for those essential processes (print, construction etc).
It isn't rocket science to work out that any policy which avoids these processes happening will work against any hope we have in protecting ourselves from CO2 driven global warming. In fact, we can demonstrate that a significant proportion (*14%) of all of the world's annual fossil CO2 emissions is probably currently absorbed by the paper and print industries, via tree wood consumption and ability to promote regrowth.
We are told that we currently recycle more than 75% of all paper used in Europe, which means, conversely, we are only removing 25% of our potential, ie we could remove 56% of all emissions. Double the demand for print, and stop recycling and we could, at least theoretically, clean up all annual global fossil CO2 emissions, indeed we would end up with net overall absorption!
*Calculated using data quoted by Earth Trends and Green America - both arguing against paper use!
All of this potential for good is prevented by recycling, which itself emits CO2 without any offset by tree growth. In fact is you might as well go on-line instead of using recycled paper, same nett result, possibly better. There are of course other policies world-wide which are reducing the acceptance of landfill for all waste, including carbon-based. In the UK we could quadruple our nett CO2 absorption numbers by not recycling paper, whilst at the same time eliminating the non-recovered emissions made by the paper recycling process.
However, this is little more than a pipe dream while ever our paper industries profit by using cheap recycled fibre, and our massive (and very lucrative) waste recovery industries carry the 'green' vote. As for Power, Oil and IT - don't get me started!
And landfill? Where do our 'policy makers' think we are going to put recovered carbon? Do they really believe that burying nuclear waste is preferable to burying sequestered carbon? Money talks many times louder than environmental interest.
Towards the end of last year a small group of us here in the UK set up Friends of Print and Paper (FoPAP), which examined some of these issues, in an unbiased way, and without commercial interest other than attempting to get a fair deal for our industry.
The original intention was to counter the misinformation, which is abundant about printing and paper, and the more we asked questions, the more we realised the potential of what we were finding.
Consequently we have developed a very detailed model of the full 'sapling to burial' life-cycle of carbon through the use of printed paper, which demonstrates very positively the valuable role that the print industry can play, including comparing, and mixing-in the alternatives, recycling, methane extraction, and incineration etc.
It is based on information and statistics from varying sources, including help from Australian and North American forestry and environmental researchers, and others. This model has been seen by several 'policy making bodies' and none have been able to fault our work (having been invited to do just that), and yet none are willing, so far, to publicly recognise that our considered opinion might be of importance or even relevance. We have a huge uphill struggle before us I am afraid.
Mick Hart
Friends of Print and Paper
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Please explain.
A company is judged to an international standard by an international certification body supervised by an international accreditation agency. The rules of the system a clearly available and published on the web. But as soon as someone falls short Print 21 blames the system and the organisation supporting it suggesting there is a lack of transparency and accountability. Or the organisation is not doing its job. I’m sorry but Tony Duncan’s article smacks of shooting the messenger.
FSC Australia is available to anyone who wants to understand and participate in the system. That doesn’t mean this global system will change to fit in with anyone (anywhere in the world) who wants to change the rules to suit themselves. There are processes for introducing change to the FSC system but that means becoming involved with FSC (which is of course an open membership-based not for profit organisation).
FSC offers a product to the market. That is association with a brand and a system that makes a promise to consumers about the source of fibre (in the case of paper) used in that product. It is a voluntary system and companies can choose to participate.
If companies choose to participate they need to respect that the integrity of that promise needs to be protected by the rules of the system. Otherwise the system is pointless. Print 21 argues this fails to appreciate commercial reality. Nevertheless FSC continues to grow and win the respect of customers and organisations that get involved.
Michael Spencer
Secretary/Honorary CEO
FSC Australia