Worldwide the paper industry is the fifth largest consumer of energy, and accounts for 4% of all the world’s energy use. Okay, there’s nothing wrong with that, but what is fueling this industry massive consumption? That’s right, our forests…

Figure 1. After Logging (Krivec, 2015)

Each year an estimated 18 million acres of forest area is cut down – this is around 4’000’000’000 trees! To be put in more visual terms, that equates to an area of around 20 football fields every minute. Doesn’t sound sustainable? You’re right!

If current deforestation rates continue, it will take less than 100 years to destroy all the rain forests on earth.

Okay so what does this have to do with paper?

Approximately 40% of the world’s industrial logging goes into making paper (responsible for 8 of those football fields every minute), and this is expected to reach 50% in the near future. So, immediately this sounds bad, but why specifically is this so damaging to the environment?

Trees, absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (a main contributor to climate change) and release oxygen (a main contributor to our breathing!). The loss of forests contributes between 12 and 17% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, this is a huge contribution to one of the most widely feared environmental problems we face today.

Figure 2. Autumn Afternoon. (Soliman, 2017)