The impact of material efficient end-use technologies on paper use and carbon emissions

The production and consumption of paper leads to emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Therefore, reducing the paper demand will lead to GHG emission reduction. Paper use for communication is responsible for GHG emissions of 121 Mton CO2-equivalents in Western Europe (1995). In this paper a baseline scenario is developed for Western Europe that forecasts a rise in communication paper consumption from 31 Mtons/year in 1995 to 53 Mtons in 2015. We show that several measures are available to reduce the demand for publication papers, e.g. thinner paper, efficient printing technologies, duplexing, and printing on demand (POD). The impact of these measures are determined by using a life cycle inventory approach whereby we focus on GHGs only. We estimate that it is technically possible to reduce paper demand in 2015 by 37% compared with the baseline scenario. This would correspond to a GHG emission reduction of 70 Mton CO2-equivalents We calculate that the intensity of use of publication papers may drop from 5.2 kg per $1000 GDP in 1995 to 3.4 kg per $1000 GDP in 2015 (all in 1995$). The measures with the largest emission reduction potential are, lowering the basic weight of paper as well as POD. Assumptions on the market potential of POD are uncertain and have a large influence on the results. Further research should focus on determining the influence of increasing access to (digital) information on paper demand. In the analysis only material management improvements are taken into account, no improvements in energy efficiency or improved waste management practices are taken into account. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.