Displaying items by tag: cepi

“The Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI) supports global trade and a free market, but a pre-condition to this is a level playing field. This is why we support requiring broadly equal environmental standards from our competitors in Asia," said Jori Ringman-Beck, CEPI Director for Recycling, Products and Environment, at bvse (Bundesverbard Sekundaerrohstoffe und Entsorgung e.V.) International Recovered Paper Conference in Dusseldorf, Germany, on Thursday 19 April.

"This is also the reason why CEPI supports the recent Italian waste law amendment enforcing good global environmental standards in recycling," said Mr. Ringman-Beck. According to the decree dated 4 April 2012, each international waste shipment must now be accompanied by a certificate issued by the authorities in the destination country confirming that the environmental standards applicable in that country are comparable to those prescribed in the EU. Recently, the Internal Committee of the Italian Parliament advised the Parliament to repeal the amendment.

CEPI reminds that the principle of requiring comparable environmental standards is already included in the European Waste Directive and the Waste Shipment Regulation, and is also recognised in the international Basel Convention on waste transports. “As such the Italian decree does not seem to be conflicting with either EU law or international law” says Mr. Ringman-Beck. “It is also giving strong support to the European green growth, resource efficiency and recycling society,” complements CEPI Director General, Teresa Presas.

“The rationale and justification of the Italian amendment is very valid and is a valuable attempt to implement the requirement of ‘broadly equivalent standards’ which has existed in EU waste legislation for years but has rarely been enforced. Not enforcing it erodes both the environmental and the economic foundations of sustainability,” says Ms. Presas.

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World’s first International Water Stewardship Standard aims to provide water users with a credible means to evaluate water impact and implement joint solutions across all sectors and regions 

The Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS), a global multi-stakeholder  organization dedicated to promoting the responsible use of freshwater globally, today released the first draft of its International Water Stewardship Standard at the World Water Forum in Marseille, France. The AWS Standard, which is now open for public input, aims to support water users in taking appropriate actions to evaluate and improve their impacts on watersheds. It aims to build on other water-related tools, helping users to reduce their water risk and generate social, environmental and economic benefits. The Standard is designed for global application in all relevant sectors.

The draft Standard focuses around four principles: water governance, water balance, water quality, and important water areas. Each principle includes criteria and indicators against which compliance will be measured. The Standard recognizes both performance and process, aiming to both ensure rigour and maximize uptake. The Standard is accompanied with guidance materials for interpretation and, ultimately, a third-party verification system.

Following today’s release, this first draft Standard will be open for a formal 90-day public consultation period during which stakeholders are encouraged to submit feedback through the  AWS website. In addition, AWS will use this 90-day period to organize regional and international events to introduce the Standard to stakeholders, ensure understanding of both the process and content, and receive feedback from individuals and institutions. This period may be extended in order to ensure balanced stakeholder input. Feedback via the AWS website and stakeholder events will be passed to the ISDC and will inform subsequent drafts of the Standard. To view the standard and provide a comment between now and June 15, 2012, please visit the AWS website at http://allianceforwaterstewardship.org. A second draft of the Standard, based upon stakeholder feedback, will be released in late 2012 with a final Standard expected in mid-2013.

The Standard is being developed through an ISEAL Alliance standard-setting process that follows the best-practice model for developing social and environmental standards. The standard is the work of a multi-stakeholder committee appointed by AWS to represent the diversity of stakeholder interests from around the world: from industry, public sector and civil society. This committee, the International Standard Development Committee, uses input from stakeholders around the world, including that gathered by AWS regional initiatives.

The water roundtable is central to the work of AWS, whose board organizations are The Nature Conservancy, Water Stewardship Australia, the Pacific Institute, WWF, Water Witness International, the Water Environment Federation, the European Water Partnership,  the International Water Management Institute, the UN Global Compact’s CEO Water  Mandate, and the Carbon Disclosure Project.

“CEPI has been an active partner in the development of a globally harmonised understanding of Water Stewardship as a member of the International Standard Development Committee and the European Water Stewardship process. The launch of the draft global standard is an important step for the European paper industry and the start of a stakeholder process defining good water stewardship operations”, said Marco Mensink, CEPI Deputy Director General. 


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Paper-based packaging industry takes a commitment on mineral oils in food packaging

Recent studies on mineral oils found in foodstuffs have raised concerns about consumer safety. According to these studies, traces of mineral oils migrate to food from inks found on the printed surface of packaging and in recycled packaging papers.

Although no toxicological studies on the effects of human exposure to mineral oil traces currently exist, the paper-based packaging industry takes this matter very seriously and is proactively working to address any concerns.

 

Despite the absence of clear scientific and regulatory guidance the industry has already made significant progress towards reducing the levels of mineral oils contained in its processes and products. In some cases a reduction of up to 90% in mineral oil levels has been observed over the last 24 months.

To formalise and further strengthen its efforts to reduce the use of mineral oils, the industry has agreed on a European-wide self-commitment. This will phase out the use of printing inks based on mineral oils for printing paper and board packaging, and mineral oil-based process chemicals for food contact paper and board packaging material.

The European paper-based packaging industry is a pioneer in developing and setting standards[1][1] for food contact paper-based packaging. These standards have allowed the industry to minimise any incidents and enable it to respond to the latest scientific developments in a timely and effective way.

No single actor has an immediate and definitive solution to addressing concerns about mineral oil migration into food. The paper-based packaging industry is therefore committed to working with all relevant stakeholders to better understand, and identify the most practical and effective ways to address these concerns.



[1][1] Industry Guideline for the Compliance of Paper and Board Materials and Articles for Food Contact by CEPI and CITPA, 2010, and Good Manufacturing Practice for the Manufacture of Paper and Board for Food Contact by CEPI, 2010. 

 

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Thursday, 08 December 2011 11:30

Forestry winner in 2011 MEP Awards announced

For the very first time, a prestigious award for members of the European Parliament (MEP Awards) carried a forestry theme. This one-off award highlighted the International Year of Forests 2011 and it was awarded to MEP Kriton Arsenis.

Mr Arsenis (S&D Greece) was recognised for his work as parliament rapporteur for the green paper on forest protection and information in the EU. Additionally, he encouraged many useful discussions regarding forests, climate change and sustainability in the European Parliament, involving different stakeholders.

CEPF and CEPI proudly sponsored the special forestry category in the MEP Awards 2011. Congratulations go to Mr Arsenis for raising the profile of the sector in EU policy discussions. The MEP Awards are widely recognized as the showcase event in the Parliament calendar.

"This award recognises for the first time the work that the European Parliament does for protecting one of our most precious renewable resources: trees. Their environmental role, their social benefits, and their economic value." stated Teresa Presas, CEPI Director General.

“We see this as a great opportunity to celebrate the United Nations International Year of Forests and to raise the MEP’s interest in forestry in general. We hope that the MEP Awards will create leadership and support in advancing the understanding and communicating the forest sector’s issues in the Parliamentarian debates”, underlined Dr Aljoscha Requardt, CEPF Secretary General.

The nominations were submitted by professional associations and interest groups working in EU affairs. The final voting was carried out among MEPs themselves in October. The winners of the award were announced at a ceremony on 29 November in Brussels.

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Wednesday, 23 November 2011 12:00

Domtar takes home two International Awards

Domtar Corporation took home the Environmental Strategy of the Year Award and the Promotional Campaign of the Year - Environmental Message Award at the Pulp and Paper International (PPI) Awards 2011 ceremony held on November 15th in Brussels, Belgium.

Domtar President and CEO John D. Williams attended the ceremony and noted, "The finalists in each of the categories make up a distinguished list from around the world, and we are proud to be among those recognized for their industry leadership.  The Environmental Strategy of the Year and Promotional Campaign of the Year awards are a great honor and a testament to our continued sustainability efforts on a number of fronts."

The Environmental Strategy of the Year award recognizes the company's efforts in the areas of sustainable forest management, greenhouse gas reduction and water management, as well as the 2011 development of the Domtar Paper Trail, an online tool that creates personalized customer reports of the environmental and socio-economic impacts of specific paper grade purchases.

The Promotional Campaign of the Year recognizes Domtar's PAPERbecause video, social media and print ad campaign telling the story of paper's utility and sustainability in a humorous and engaging way.  The campaign was originally launched in 2010 and recently renewed with the introduction of five new videos.

"For years we've been championing sustainable forest management and fiber procurement, and at the same time we've devoted considerable resources to pursuing emissions reduction and energy efficiency initiatives at our mills," added Lewis Fix, Domtar's Vice-President of Sustainable Business and Brand Management.  "Now with the Domtar Paper Trail and the PAPERbecause campaign, we are saying that stakeholder engagement and transparency are a big part of putting our commitment to sustainability into practice."

For more information, please visit www.paperbecause.com and www.domtarpapertrail.com.

The PPI Awards are organized by RISI, the leading information provider for the global forest products industry. They are the industry's only global awards that honor leadership, vision, innovation and strategic accomplishments. Winners were named on November 15th at an event in Brussels that overlaps with RISI's European Paper Week.

Published in Press Releases
Friday, 18 November 2011 13:00

European paper industry delivering bio-value

The European pulp and paper industry today concluded its thirteenth European Paper Week reporting on achievements of the last two years with their 5th Sustainability Report and looking at what the future holds in their 2050 roadmap for a low-carbon bio-economy.

The three-day event brought together over 330 people from the pulp and paper industry, related organisations as well as different European institutions and provided a high-level platform for discussion.

At a moment when the European Commission is working on a Communication about the upcoming bio-economy, CEPI (Confederation of European Paper Industries) organised a densely packed Annual Meeting, presenting the newly launched “2050 Roadmap for a low-carbon bio-economy” to Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner of Climate action and her cabinet. ”You are the first energy-intensive industry to follow up on the Commission’s call to produce sector-specific, bottom-up roadmaps to complement the vision we presented in March in our Roadmap to a competitive low-carbon economy in 2050. […] Most importantly, your roadmap presents a vision of a thriving European bio-economic sector that reaps the opportunities that the low carbon economy will bring, while at the same time addressing its challenges. In short it presents a vision that your industry will be part of the solution“, commented Connie Hedegaard.

A panel involving CEOs of the European paper industry, exchanged views about their 2050 visions and debated the transformation to a low-carbon economy. ”The forest fibre industry, drawing as it does largely on EU raw materials, will have a central role to play in the bio-economy, where the focus will be on sustainable, renewable and recyclable raw materials creating the highest possible added value”, stated Berry Wiersum, CEPI Chairman and CEO of Sappi Fine Paper Europe.

The key plenary event also saw contributions from Pavel Misiga, Head of Unit at the European Commission, DG Environment; replacing Karl Falkenberg, Director at DG Enterprise.

“The European paper industry continues to excel in sustainability matters and we have achieved relative decoupling of our environmental impacts from production. Recycling has increased and certification of wood used in our mills has risen to a new level. We have further reduced CO2 emissions, and the percentage of companies with environmental management systems is at an all time high of 90%”, said Teresa Presas, CEPI Director General in her presentation addressing the freshly published 2011 Sustainability Report.

A youth panel concluded the annual event of the European paper industry; the panel discussed the results of a recent survey analysing paper use of digital natives (16-26 year old) in Europe. CEPI found that young people live in a digital world, where paper is key. Young Europeans are digitally connected and prefer to use digital technology for photos and bank statements, but they see paper as more emotional and trusted choice when it comes to love notes, birthday cards, contracts and diplomas.

European Paper Week - the networking event of the year within the pulp and paper industry - took place in Brussels from 15-17 November. This year the event also included several interactive seminars on a wide range of topics such as forest certification, recycling, packaging, research and sustainability.

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cepi 3octUlrich Höke, ERPC chairman, and Soledad Blanco, Director at the European Commission, DG Environment launched the European Declaration on Paper Recycling 2011-2015 at the European Paper Recycling Awards in the European Parliament.

The European Declaration on Paper Recycling sets out measures to optimise the management of paper throughout the value chain from paper and board manufacturing, converting and printing through to the collection, sorting, transportation and recycling of used paper and board products back into the paper loop.

All 12 Signatories and Supporters of this Declaration are willing to ensure that correct systems are in place to encourage paper recycling. They are building on the very positive progress made by the first European Declaration on Paper Recovery 2000 to 2005 and the European Declaration on Paper Recycling 2006 to 2010 (see www.paperforrecycling.eu). Together these sectors will continue on a sustainable path in paper recycling, making it possible to reach the new target of a 70% recycling rate by 2015.

Signatories and Supporters of the Declaration accept voluntarily to undertake a number of complementary actions contributing to this target wherever technically possible and economically reasonable. Priority is given to the prevention of waste including its
environmental impact during the manufacture of paper and board products, through collection and recycling of paper. Close attention is also being paid to improving the recyclability and - where applicable - the deinkability of paper-based products.

In his introductory statement for the European Declaration on Paper Recycling Janez Potocnik, European Commissioner for the Environment, states: “the Declaration is fully in line with the European objective to build a "circular economy" aiming at using waste as resource. I am therefore happy to support the approach taken by the sector and to wish a long and successful life to this Declaration!”.

ERPC chairman, Ulrich Höke adds: “Paper is already one of the best managed raw materials, boasting high recovery and recycling rates. Even so, the industry commits to continuously improve. We suggest, instead of simply “shrinking consumption”, making paper consumption more sustainable, preserving the valuable contribution of the value chain to green growth and job creation in Europe.”

The Declaration is open to other European associations, whose members are involved directly or indirectly in the paper value chain. Representatives of the EU Institutions will be invited to attend the ERPC gatherings as Observers.

The progress of the Declaration will be reported annually by the European Recovered Paper Council (ERPC).

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Thursday, 22 September 2011 08:31

Innovative Projects in Paper Recycling Awarded

The European Recovered Paper Council recognised the most innovative paper recycling projects last night when MEP Eija-Riitta KORHOLA (EPP, Finnland) presented the Third Annual European Paper Recycling Awards at the European Parliament in Brussels.

The event hosted by Eija-Riitta KORHOLA, MEP and Vice President of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee, and Ulrich Höke, ERPC chairman, saw three winners receive their prize and those highly commended receive a certificate of recognition.

The winners are:

Technology Improvement & R&D category: ‘ProjectCLEAN’ by Palwaste Recycling and ‘New Possibilities for Process Control’ by PTS

ProjectCLEAN is a highly innovative project that was set up with one purpose in mind: to develop a recycling solution for an omnipresent waste stream that went unrecycled: so-called “plastic-aluminium laminates”. Stora Enso Barcelona and the engineering firm Alucha noticed the recycling problem of the laminates early on. In 2005 they set up a joint company “PALWaste Recycling” which launched ProjectCLEAN. Goal of the project: To use jointly developed technology and build and operate Europe’s 1st facility that can fully recycle beverage cartons.

The “New Possibilities for Process Control by NIR Monitoring of Recovered Paper” project used for the first time an online NIR measurement system to determine several important qualitative and quantitative parameters of recovered paper in a paper mill. Online measurements allowed the observation of the real changes in composition of recovered paper as it was not possible before. The measurements are done over the whole conveyor belt with a spatial resolution of 4 cm allowing to evaluate the complete recovered paper stream and not only random samples like other manual and visual methods.

The results of the research project can be used to bring about improved consistency and economy of the overall process in the deinking plant andultimately enhanced product quality.

Information & Education category: ‘Be Part of Birmingham’s Paper Chain’, Smurfit Kappa

This project is the result of a close working partnership between Smurfit Kappa Recycling (SKR) and Birmingham City Council (BCC) since 1993 which operates on a rolling contract basis. Since the partnership between Smurfit Kappa Recycling and Birmingham City Council was first formed in 1993 the amount of paper recovered from the waste stream for recycling has increased from 750 tonnes to around 40,000 tonnes per year today.

The project is innovative because the partnership not only works on a day to day basis, but also works to provide information jointly to customers. The ‘Be part of Birmingham’s Paper Chain’ campaign was a partnership project between WRAP (Waste and Recycling Action Programme), BCC and SKR.

BCC reached the target recycling rate of 32% in 2010/11. Birmingham also collected 73.5 kg of paper per household compared to the average of 53.62 kg per household in other cities in the UK. Since October 2010, the Recycling Liaison Officer has visited 80 site schools and 27 community groups. This lead to increased recycling in these schools and 13 schools started to recycle for the first time.

In addition to these winners several projects were highly commended:

      Technical Improvement & R&D category

  • Antalis McNaughton Ltd
  • Deutsche Post DHL
  • Comieco
  • Green Press Partnership

Information & Education category

  • Van Gansewinkel Group
  • Fujifilm Europe GmbH
  • Vertaris
  • Goma-Camps Group
  • Xerox Corporation.

“New Recycling activities and projects are started on a daily basis in Europe and the European Paper Recycling Awards acknowledge the best of them. At the same time it allows us to maintain a repository of good ideas that can be copied and adapted in other countries, companies or regions.” explained Ulrich Höke, Chairman of the ERPC.

“The entrants in this year’s competition show that there is a huge wealth of talent working in Europe to improve paper recycling and to bring us closer to a recycling society. We were very impressed by the quality of all the entrants and congratulate the winners on their achievements. We also hope that those who were not so lucky in this year’s competition will continue to develop their activities and promote paper as a wonderfully useful and sustainable product,” he concluded.

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Thursday, 08 September 2011 12:48

The European Paper Industry - Delivering Bio-value

European Paper Week 2011 will take place from 15 till 17 November included at the Crowne Plaza, Le Palace, Rogier, Brussels.

European Paper Week is the European paper and pulp industry’s biggest annual event gathering some 300 participants, from all areas and levels in the industry. The event extends over 3 days, includes a series of meetings involving a range of industry sectors and creates a high level forum for discussion.

Register before 30 September for the early bird rate and download the draft programme here.

Please note the change of date for the Annual Meeting. It is now on the Wednesday afternoon, 16 November. The online registration system will be open beginning September.

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Thursday, 08 September 2011 12:42

Invitation: 2011 European Paper Recycling Awards

The European Recovered Paper Council is pleased to invite you to attend the 2011 European Paper Recycling Awards on Wednesday 21 September 2011 at 18h00 at the European Parliament, rue Wiertz 60, 1047 Brussels, Batiment Spaak, 1st floor, Espace Menuhin

This year, awards will be given in two categories:

  • Information & Education
  • Technology Improvement & R&D

After the recycling awards, live music and a reception will provide an opportunity to meet and greet key individuals in the European Parliament.

To faciliate the organisation please register online at  http://paperrecovery.org/online-registration before 12 September.

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