Southern Africa - Sappi

Products
In an increasingly environmentally aware world,
our products have an important competitive
advantage in that they are primarily manufactured
from a renewable, recyclable natural resource –
wood fibre.
Profiling our products
In South Africa, we use a voluntary environmental product declaration scheme, Paper
Profile, to enable our customers to make well informed product choices. The Paper Profile
presents figures on essential environmental parameters in a uniform way for specific products.
The scope of the reported information is the pulp and paper production including product composition
and emissions. The profile also includes information about environmental aspects of wood procurement
and environmental management systems.
Specific rules apply on how to collect, calculate and present the information. The aim of the Paper Profile
concept is to allow paper producers to openly present environmental information of their products in a
standardised uniform way.
Customers are interested in our ‘cradle to gate’ greenhouse gas emissions. In the Paper Profile data
sheet, the CO 2 (fossil) emissions are calculated from fossil fuels used both at the paper mill on site and
at the pulp mill (integrated or external) for heat and electrical power generation.
The Paper Profile datasheet does not include data on carbon fossil emissions associated with the
generation of purchased electrical power, nor does it include greenhouse gas emissions associated with
the production process of raw materials and transportation of raw materials to the pulp and paper mills.
It also doesn’t include delivery of the finished product to its final destination.
Following extensive work done by our colleagues at Sappi Fine Paper Europe, in South Africa we are
currently examining ways to give our customers a more complete profile of the carbon footprint of our
products.
Sustainability Report 2011 39