NG
Member companies from the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE) UK – Elopak, SIG Combibloc and Tetra Pak – are committed to ensuring that the wood fibre for the paperboard in their cartons is sourced from forests that are responsibly managed. By incorporating around 75% wood fibre, not only are ACE members encouraging the expansion of these forests as carbon sinks, but are also avoiding the use of non-renewable raw materials.
The beverage carton manufacturers and their paperboard suppliers have put rigorous traceability systems in place, so that they can trace the wood fibre back to the forest area it came from. These systems are independently verified and certified annually according to chain of custody standards set by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and/or Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). Within Europe, 100% of the wood used in the paperboard used by Elopak, SIG Combibloc and Tetra Pak to make the cartons comes from paper mills that have an FSC certified chain-of-custody in place.
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Because in managed forests trees are replaced or replenished at a rate equivalent or greater than their use, wood fibre is a renewable resource
POTENTIAL
And significant progress has been made globally towards achieving full traceability certification of wood used in beverage cartons manufactured by ACE companies and of the factories that produce them worldwide. Certified or controlled fibres purchased by the ACE firms, which together make up four- fifths of the global drinks carton market, rose from 47% in 2007 to 77% in 2008, according to a recent ProForest report . Tracing wood fibres back to their source is a key tool in responsible forestry practices. ACE members globally have increased pur- chases of FSC-certified and FSC-controlled wood fibre in a single year by more than 700,000 tonnes (more than 60%). Combine these raw material benefits of being low-carbon and renewable with being widely recycled and transport-efficient, and it is not surprising that beverage cartons are repeatedly shown to be a low-carbon packaging choice in life-cycle studies across the world.
Renewable by nature
In addition to helping reduce CO2 when they are living, the trees used in the paperboard production process provide their own renew- able energy after they have been harvested, helping to minimise the European carton industry’s net emissions of CO2.
The bark, sawdust and other by-products, such as black liquor resulting from the logging and pulp-making process, which would have
otherwise gone to waste, are used for bio- energy production. This renewable energy accounts for over 70% of the total energy needs of the four European paper mills pro- ducing paperboard for beverage cartons. Some of the mills even sell surplus green energy from this process, helping to further minimise fossil fuel consumption for the local community. For example, Korsnäs sells enough green energy to power 25,000 homes and the Stora Enso Skoghall mill provides enough energy to meet the consumption demands of some 6,000 houses.
Forest industries with responsible manage- ment practices are in a good position to help combat climate change via carbon sequestra- tion. However, to ensure forests continue to
help reduce Europe’s CO2 emissions, natural- ly, we need to make firm commitments to procuring sustainably produced wood and paper products above products that use less climate-friendly resources.
By using more wood for packaging and other industrial applications, such as construc- tion materials, not only will we be taking a huge step towards increasing the world’s for- est biomass and thus the ability to remove
CO2 from the atmosphere, but also to reduc- ing our reliance on fossil fuels.
Richard Hands is chairman of the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE) UK
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www.ace-uk.co.uk
Sustainab le Business ❘ May 2010 29
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