It is a little appreciated fact that paper contributes even more to global carbon emissions than aviation. We call these emissions Paper Vapour.

An event in London on 9 July 2013 will highlight the important link between climate change and paper production, use and disposal. The European Environmental Paper Network is hosting the seminar, which will bring together experts on the carbon footprint of paper and life cycle analysis and people from UK organisations who have been taking practical steps to increase paper efficiency, thus driving down their carbon emissions.

The open invitation to the event, with a link for registration, is here.

Find out more about Paper Vapour.

Our second paper efficiency project webinar, or ‘PEP talk’, is on Wednesday 5 June  2013, at 3pm. If you’d like to register,  contact us. If you missed it you can see it online or download the slides here. There is an accompanying webpage with some signposts to useful resources here. Why not check out our other paper efficiency tools?

Overview

Almost half of Europe’s paper use is accounted for by packaging. While packaging has many useful functions (protection, hygiene, branding, customer information) this utility is often very short-lived. There are therefore great opportunities for increasing efficiency, achieving the same functions with lighter weight and smaller boxes.

This Paper Efficiency Project (PEP) talk will help you to understand the scale of the impacts of packaging use, and some very practical ways to reduce these impacts. It will also challenge the idea that reductions in packaging reduce the opportunities for brand messaging and consumer information. A case study will be presented by the Packaging and Print Technology Manager for Sainsbury’s, one of the UK’s major supermarket chains.

Our research into case studies shows that paper efficiency can lead to increased sales, more customer satisfaction and fewer product breakages, as well as environmental benefits – it’s all about  smart packaging design. To find out more, why not attend our Paper Efficiency Project (PEP) talk on packaging? This is a live online webinar on Wednesday 5 June 2013, 4pm GMT.   If you missed it and would like to watch it or download the slides, please follow this link.

Our second paper efficiency project webinar, or ‘PEP talk’, was held on Wednesday 8 May 2013, at 3pm. If you missed it you can see it online or download the slides here. There is an accompanying webpage with some signposts to useful resources here. Why not check out our other paper efficiency tools?

Overview

To reduce the environmental and social impacts and financial costs of paper, many organisations are looking at digital delivery of information. A huge range of paper applications can be replaced by digital alternatives: online newspapers and magazines, ebooks, electronic billing, web banner advertising, digital photography, PDF report downloads and of course emails and computer-based filing systems. But how do the environmental impacts of paper and digital alternatives compare? Is digital greener than paper or does a shift online just displace your footprint, rather than reducing it?

This 40 minute webinar explores comparisons between the impacts of paper and digital applications, review some of the lifecycle studies that have looked at this issue and examine some case studies. We draw some conclusions – including how carbon footprints are less for digital than paper – and offer some signposts.

This Paper Efficiency Project (PEP) talk aims to help you work out how to compare the footprints of your organisation’s choices to print or to work online and to help you to take a systematic approach to identifying the different opportunities that digital and paper media present and offer some signposts for assessing the impacts, particularly the carbon footprint, of the different alternatives.

It includes a recent case study by Penguin Books, presented by Meredith Walsh, which demonstrates what needs to be taken into account in comparing the environmental impacts of paper versus digital applications and an introduction to a method for assessing the carbon footprint of digital alternatives to printed paper products, by Michael Sturges, consultant with Innventia.

To find out more about the paper versus digital debate, see here.