Despite the recession, the use of environmentally certified printing paper has continued to grow. Eco-paper is expected to be increasingly important for printing houses to remain competitive in coming years.
The environmental certification symbol of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is increasingly common on magazines and printed material. Still, only a small proportion of publishers use it to label their products, even though their paper often meets the requirements.
"Some of our bigger customers express a genuine increase in eco-labeled paper," says Hans Engström, CEO of Sörmlands Grafiska, a printing house in Katrineholm, Sweden. "But few of them are prepared to pay for certification and labeling. Still, we think that over time this will be a critical issue that may determine whether a company wins printing jobs or not."
Rouhly a third of the paper the Sörmlands Grafiska printing house purchases today is certified for traceability in compliance with the FSC, but only 8.3 percent of the publication paper used in 2010 was FSC-labeled. "We think they will play an increasingly important role in the choice of raw materials as well as producers," Engström says.
In Britain, use of FSC-certified paper increased from 1 percent in 2008 to 7 percent in 2010, according to Helen Henderson, at the printing house Elanders. "Factors like paper, transportation, energy consumption and the carbon footprint for the process will also carry significantly more weight in the future," she says.
SCA’s deliveries of FSC-certified publication paper have increased substantially since it was introduced on the market at the beginning of the 2000s.
