Pickler’s mission is to bring unbiased market average data to help you confirm or counter 'sustainable gut feelings'. But this sometimes results in surprises.

For example, recycled paper values (testliner) in Pickler often show worse eco cost and CO2-eq results than their virgin counterparts (e.g. kraft).

Understandably, it feels counterintuitive…:

We teamed up with Dr. Ir. Joost Vögtlander (Technical University of Delft), board member of the Sustainability Impact Metrics foundation and creator and manager of the LCI database Idemat - to explain the difference.

First, it's important to distinguish between the two types of data you can use in a Life Cycle Assessment: primary (supplier specific) and secondary (market average).

Primary data is a unique in-depth peer reviewed Life Cycle Assessment performed by a supplier for a product and its specific processes, materials, etc. However, most companies don't have LCAs or EPDs for their products - as this is an expensive, time consuming process - almost impossible to do at a large scale.

To still be able to make credible footprint calculations, existing, market average peer-reviewed LCAs or EPDs for materials, processes, transport types, energy, etc. are the solution. This is what we call secondary data - it's market average data. Pickler works with LCI database Idemat for that exact reason.

Pickler's Idemat values are market averages. This means your specific supplier of recycled paper might score better (or perhaps worse) than the scores from Idemat, depending on their production processes. But more about that later.

The latest EU market LCA values in Idemat for virgin and recycled paper come from FEFCO and are provided by IDEMAT.

Here are the three main reasons, virgin paper currently scores better on average:

A key aspect causing the impact difference is the energy type for the production processes.

Kraft paper is often made in integrated paper mills near forests, which use wood waste for energy production. Since biogenic carbon is not counted, fossil carbon dioxide emissions are quite low (there is not much use of fossil fuels).

However, testliner is often made in paper mills positioned near cities, as this is where waste paper is collected. They work with energy from the grid (gas/coal), instead of wood waste, causing a lot of fossil CO2 emissions.

Combined with the extra production process + energy consumption necessary to recycle old paper into new paper pulp, virgin paper’s single production process with low biogenic and fossil emissions - scores better on average.

“Recycling paper stores carbon even longer than the short lifecycle for kraft paper. How can kraft be better?”

*Carbon storage in plant-based products is a tricky topic in LCA. But what kind of carbon are we talking about here?

Biogenic carbon comes from plants that capture an amount of carbon during their growth and release it back into the atmosphere when they decay or incinerate. After this happens, new trees capture the carbon again during their growth - and the cycle continues. Unlike fossil fuels, it’s a short carbon cycle - a circular system, where all carbon stored, is again released after a certain period.

This makes biobased (i.e. paper) products interesting: you temporarily take CO2-eq out of the atmosphere. Providing society with a temporary state to reduce more CO2 than we emit. Sounds like a great way to help us speed up the carbon reduction we need!

But how long should this temporary storage be - to enable us to implement effective reduction measures? And should this be reflected in LCA to offer ‘storage credits’?

*Also called carbon uptake or carbon sequestration in LCA language.

Idemat and Pickler follow the scientific consensus (following the IPCC, EcoInvent, and PEF) to apply the rule that biogenic carbon uptake = 0 in Life Cycle Assessments for products with a lifespan of less than 100 - like packaging products (see image below). This means only products that outlive 100 years, can offer the temporary state we need to realize extra carbon reduction.

For packaging products, no carbon uptake is counted, as it will be released at its end of life anyway. The lifespan of board and paper products is too short to contribute to a reduction in atmospheric CO2.

With average recycling rates of 2,5 in Europe, recycled paper products, too, release carbon back into the atmosphere within 100 years. Hence, there are no carbon storage credits applied in LCAs with biobased products from Pickler.

Source: https://www.ecocostsvalue.com/

On the contrary, FEFCO and many testliner producers apply carbon uptake in their LCAs. Especially, since many suppliers create cradle-to-gate LCAs (you calculate emissions until packaging leaves the factory gate). Cradle-to-gate LCAs with carbon uptake exclude the End-of-life stage emissions (release back into the atmosphere) in their calculations. This means, only the carbon storage credits are accounted for, resulting in negative carbon scores (see image below).

Source: https://www.ecocostsvalue.com/

Pickler follows The PEF’s (EU’s Product Environmental Footprint Method) rejection of this calculation with carbon uptake. To showcase the complete picture and include carbon release at EOL, Pickler also always calculates the full lifecycle (cradle to grave).

The carbon footprint isn't the only important impact category. In the eco costs model Pickler applies, we take into account several other impact categories, including impact on biodiversity which is decided based on the midpoint category Land Use Change.

Keeping forests untouched is extremely beneficial for biodiversity. Cutting trees for kraft, therefore, causes biodiversity loss compared to cutting fewer trees for recycled paper. This is reflected in Pickler’s impact category: impact on biodiversity.

However, the differences between kraft and testliner are very small as most FSC pulp for paper comes from managed boreal forests in Scandinavia with relatively low biodiversity, instead of biodiversity-rich rainforests.

So, it makes sense to prioritize biodiversity if the wood pulp for testliner or kraft comes from forests with high biodiversity (i.e. tropical rain forests and ‘untouched’ boreal forests in Scandinavia).

However, if the pulp comes from forests where biodiversity is relatively low (i.e. managed boreal forests from Scandinavia) - you prioritize the carbon footprint (carbon uptake = 0). In that situation, kraft, currently, on average scores better than testliner.

It is important to realize that this impact data from FEFCO is a European market average. There will certainly be local LCAs (within Europe and outside Europe) that have different results.

If you want more specific environmental data for your recycled or virgin paper products (+ comparing them), it's best to reach out to your supplier for more specific information you can feed into Pickler.

Read how in our article below.