28 Nov 2007 - Brussels,
Belgium – From packaging paper to office paper
and tissues, the WWF Guide to Buying Paper
makes it easy for any organization to understand
the most important environmental impacts of
paper-making and to source responsibly-produced
paper products, thus reducing their environmental
footprint.
The new guide — launched today at the European
paper industry’s annual Paper Week — includes
a scorecard that enables buyers to evaluate
the environmental performance of current and
future suppliers on recycling, responsible
forest management, pollution and climate change.
The guide also provides recommendations on
how to work with suppliers towards improvements.
Taking responsibility
Paper has been an integral part of our cultural
development and is essential for modern life.
But the world´s paper consumption has
quadrupled in the last 40 years and is growing
further.
This tremendous expansion threatens the last
remaining natural forests, and the people
and wildlife who depend on them, in many regions
around the world. Pulp and paper processing
also releases vast amounts of greenhouse gases
and a wide range of polluting compounds into
the environment.
"Paper buyers and producers need to
take responsibility for their activities,"
said Duncan Pollard, WWF International's Conservation
Practice and Policy Director.
"We will now intensify the work with
organizations buying large amounts of paper
to implement the recommendations outlined
in the new guide. It is important that paper
buyers influence their suppliers to minimize
their environmental impacts on biodiversity
loss, climate change and water and air pollution.”
Responsible buying
The need for a buyers' guide to responsible
paper purchasing and use emerged from discussions
WWF had with a number of major paper buyers:
Canon, IKEA, Lafarge, McDonald’s and Unilever.
Other buyers have also expressed interest
in the new WWF tools.
"We welcome these new WWF initiatives
in enhancing the environmental performance
of the paper industry," said Bob Latham
from the Paper Merchant Robert Horne.
"They help to improve transparency and
data access. It is vital that paper producers
and suppliers provide sufficient and verifiable
information to buyers so that they can make
informed choices. The WWF Paper Guide can
certainly help here."
Tetra Pak sees the WWF Guide for Buying Paper
as an important tool for understanding the
environmental performance of the forest and
paper industries.
"The guide provides comparable data
for buyers and decision-makers," said
Lena Dahl, Forest Policy Officer at Tetra
Pak International.
"Tetra Pak has been assessing its global
paper board suppliers' performance for a number
of years, evaluating nearly the same parameters.
We are now investigating whether we can take
some lessons from the WWF Paper Scorecard
and incorporate these into our supplier evaluation."
"The Scorecard captures a selection of
important environmental parameters and presents
them in a way that is easy to understand,"
added Björn Lyngfelt, Vice President
of Communications at SCA Forest Products.
"We have applied the scoring system on
its products and will make the results available
to its customers. As for all market instruments,
at the end of the day it is the paper customers
that will decide the usefulness of the Scorecard.”
WWF will credit transparency and responsibility
of paper buyers and producers by offering
its new Paper Toolbox as a web-based “meeting
place” and resource centrr on environmental
issues.
Helma Brandlmaier
WWF International
Margareta Renstrom
WWF International
