So it would be instructive to see how the European paper industry has fared under the Kyoto-triggered EU Emissions Trading System; providing a real world test-case. If faced with the same carbon constraints as European counterparts; how might our paper industry in the US adapt and evolve ?

If the European experience is anything to go by; they’ll do fine, it seems.

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Dispatch from greenprinteronline.com.

Check this: more than 30% of all the trees that are logged go to
make paper. That’s a lot of energy to kill all our poor, little green
friends: in fact, deforestation contributes between 20% and 25% of all carbon pollution,
which in turn accelerates global warming. And yes, we’ve heard it
before: recycle, recycle, recycle. But does it work? Yes, but….
according to the RFU, most of us still don’t do it as much as we’d like
to.

In Canada, we recovered only 44% of all paper products used and over 90% of all office paper is still made from virgin fibres.
Ouch, that hurts the feelings of treehuggers like us. Here are seven
easy office tips to save trees and cut down carbon emissions:

1. It’s what your mother always told you: Frugal is the new chic. When making copies, set your machine to use both sides of paper and cut your consumption by 50%.
2. A recycling bin beneath everyone’s desk. Hide a paper
   recycling receptacle next to every printer, copier and fax machine so
   that your work crew can get rid of unwanted paper in them. We are
   creatures of comfort and leisure: it’s easier to lean down than walk
   across the hall, non?
3. Print in carbon lite mode: To save even more
   ink, print in draft mode. It will usually lighten the shade, but you’ll
   still be able to read your copy clearly.
4. Cut the junk: Remove your office mailing address from the
   junk mass mailer’s list - if everyone in Canada did, we would cut
   emissions the equivalent of removing 3 million cards of the road. Huge.
5. Consider alternative paper: Think about buying paper made from treeless paper.
6. Buy recycled toner and ink: Cartridges contribute metal and
   plastic to landfills, but buying toner and ink that’s refilled can help
   alleviate this environmental burden.
7. Don’t forget the office loo: Toilet paper is often made from virgin fiber and up to 424,000 trees would be spared by replacing a 500-sheet roll of virgin fiber toilet paper.

Green Printer
(GP) is the only environmental printing company in North America that
sells brochures and other paper products in runs as low as 10 (instead
of 1000) in order to save trees and meet your organization’s unique
printing needs. And, GP works closely with and buys from paper mills
that run on clean energy and use offsets. What’s more, GP is not shy to
tell you to print less in order to save trees – and the planet. We’ve
also got a funky Eco Calculator.

The paper industry is one of the biggest environmental bad guys in big industry. According to NRDC,

"The pulp and paper industry may contribute to more global and local environmental problems than any other industry in the world. Paper manufacturers reach deep into species-rich forests for virgin timber, razing trees, polluting waterways and destroying precious wildlife habitat. Pulp and paper mills that use virgin timber are major generators of hazardous air pollutants, including dioxins and other cancer-causing chemicals. And the industry is the third largest industrial emitter of global warming pollution."

The average American uses 741 pounds of paper a year. We can reduce this excessive paper usage by narrowing the margins. Changethemargins.com is a campaign to do just this. The campaign’s goals are to:

• Convince Microsoft to change the default margin settings in Microsoft Word to .75 on all sides. The more convenient it is for people to change their habits, the better chance there is that they will actually do so.
• Persuade five corporations to officially sanction narrower margins for all company documents. In this way, people will get used to seeing documents with this formatting as the standard, as opposed to the exception. Never underestimate the power of peer pressure.
• Challenge five universities to adopt narrower margin settings as the standard for their students and faculty, and include this information in their course guidelines.

Changethemargins.com has started a petition to Microsoft to change the default margins to .75" on all of its software, of which there is no technical reason for the current default settings of 1.25". It has been my experience that some printers do not like margins smaller than this, but you can experiment with your own printer to see how small you can make your margins. Here are some more astounding facts on paper from Changethemargins.com:

• It takes 17 pulpwood market-sized trees and 390 gallons of oil to make a ton of paper
• That ton of paper, when disposed of, takes up nearly 8 cubic feet of public landfill space.
• That public landfill is approximately 36% waste paper products.
• Each one million pages of paper not printed saves 85 pulp trees.
• Americans discard 4 million tons of office paper every year — enough to build a 12 foot high wall of paper from New York to California.

There are other ways you can reduce your paper usage in the office. Use the print preview feature to be sure that there are no errors in formatting before printing. Furthermore, always print double-sided, or use scratch paper when possible. I am always shocked to find the majority of the paper in the bin at the recycling center has only been used on one side. The little things do add up! Even a fraction of an inch can save paper.