Report on the Results of the Fiscal 2012 Follow-up Survey on JPA’s Committed Action Plan and Efforts against Global Warming in the Japanese Pulp and Paper Industry

Abstract

The Japan Paper Association (JPA) has been actively working to save energy since 1997 when it established its “Committed Action Plan on Environment”. JPA declares its policy of restraining CO₂ emissions in the action plan, and is working toward the following targets revised in September 2007 :
•On a five-year average basis from fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2012, reduce fossil energy consumption per ton of production and fossil energy derived CO₂ emission per ton of production by 20% and 16% from the level of fiscal 1990, respectively
•By fiscal 2012, expand forest plantation area owned or managed by the industry at home and abroad to 700 thousand hectares.
Since fiscal year 1990, JPA has made a survey on the actual results of energy consumption in the year, and published its results compared with that in fiscal year 1990. This report shows the results for fiscal year 2011.
According to the fiscal 2012 survey, pulp and paper industry’s fossil energy consumption per ton of paper production and fin fiscal 2011 was 25.4% lower than the level of fiscal 1990, which is almost the same level as previous year. This is mainly thanks to manufacturers’ continuous energy saving efforts and improved production efficiency through restructuring their production system, in spite of a significantly decreased production.
On the other hand fossil energy derived CO₂ emission per ton of production was 20.1% lower than the level of fiscal 1990, a 2.6 points deterioration compared to the level of fiscal 2010, due to an increased in-house power generation to address electricity shortage caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake and change in fuel mix with production shift to unaffected mills from large mills damaged by the disaster.
In addition to the results of the follow-up survey, this report introduces the position of the pulp and paper industry in national energy consumption and CO₂ emissions, and information such as JPA’s Action Plan for low-carbon society and the impact of the raise in electricity prices on the industry.