Evaluating environmental impacts of newspaper: Life cycle assessment and carbon footprint

Concern about climate change and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has created pressures for the printing industry. Customers are willing to know and to minimize the carbon footprint of their purchases. Up-to-date information on environmental performance is required also in business to business relationships. In Finland VTT (KCL) has coordinated national level industry consortium project called Lean Development with Renewable Resources (LEADER 2007 - 2010). The project is studying the environmental impacts occurred during the life cycle of print products. Product life cycle is studied from cradle the grave, starting from the forest and covering the paper manufacturing, printing and distribution to households. Finally, the impact of different end of life options is studied. Life cycle assessment and carbon footprint are the main tools applied within the project. In carbon footprint case studies, both CEPI carbon footprint guidelines and the PAS2050 guidelines have been applied. The project consists of several life cycle assessment and carbon footprint case studies. Studied product groups include heatset printed magazine, coldset web offset printed newspaper, electrophotography printed publication, sheet-fed offset printed book and rotogravure printed advertisement. Through the case studies, critical phases during the life cycle of a print product can be discovered. The aim of the project is to provide guidance on improved environmental performance, focusing especially on energy and material efficiency. Special features of carbon footprint of fibre phase products have been studied and the differences between the calculation methods have been evaluated. Additional emphasis is given also on the ways to communicate the results of carbon footprint calculations and life cycle assessments. The research is conducted in cooperation with the Finnish Environment Institute, Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, FinnMedia, several printing companies, suppliers, logistics and paper manufacturer's Stora Enso, UPM-Kymmene, Myllykoski and Metsäliitto. Funding partners are StoraEnso, UPM-Kymmene, Myllykoski, Metsäliitto, Graphic industry research foundation and Finnish funding agency for Technology and Innovations.