With a focus on sustainability and climate change, we are often called to reduce the amount of paper we use and turn to non-wood-based alternatives. But could a reliance on paper actually help reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
Forests are, in fact, a critical natural resource for absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, and forest preservation and management was an important topic at the recent UN Global Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland. World leaders discussed how to prevent deforestation and preserve the health of the world’s forests.
According to Two Sides, North American forests (that supply the wood fiber for our paper and packaging products) are among the most sustainably managed in the world.
In fact, Two Sides maintains that forests continue to be a net absorber of carbon – citing that in the United States, sustainable forest management practices, the regeneration of forest area and modern harvesting practices resulted in a net sequestration of carbon every year from 1990 to 2019, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) reports that U.S. forests annually capture and store 14% of economy-wide carbon dioxide emissions. Natural Resources Canada reports that forestlands capture and store around 19% of all carbon dioxide equivalents emitted in the country.
Read the complete article here: Can Paper Help Save the Planet
The article reasons that “by providing a dependable economic market for responsibly grown fiber, the paper industry encourages landowners to manage their forestland instead of selling it for development and that without the economic incentive provided by the forest products industry, millions of acres of forestland would likely have been lost permanently to commercial land development – converted to building projects, strip malls or parking lots.”
Certainly there is little doubt – even among environmentalists – that sustainability managed forests are better for our environment than housing developments.
And the idea that “going paperless” will save trees is a fallacy.
In 2016, Dr. Jim Bowyer, lead author of the Dovetail study, stated, “A common and simplistic, yet erroneous view, is that using less paper will lead to more trees across the landscape. Just as eating fewer apples will result in fewer rather than more apple trees, decreased consumption of wood products will not yield more trees and forests. Similarly, claims that using ‘tree-free’ paper made from other fibers (ex: recycled fiber, wheat, sugarcane) will ‘save trees’ are equally misleading. The development of markets for wood is essential to maintain forest lands as forest for the long term. Meanwhile, the time has come for serious reconsideration of the erroneous ‘save paper-save trees’ movement.”
In summary, utilizing paper that comes from responsibility managed forests, should be viewed as a sustainable and environmentally friendly choice – not the other way around.
After all, as long as we have wood-based paper, we still have to have trees.
Two Sides notes, “should markets for wood simply dry up, then there is a very real likelihood of land conversion to other uses such as urban development or agriculture.”
