There are lots of myths surrounding paper, being not an environment-friendly product. However, the reality is far from this, explains Naynesh Pasari, MD, Shree Krishna Paper Mills & Industries Ltd. (SKPMIL), India’s First innovator of unbleached chemical free paper and the first company to introduce Eco-friendly Sustainable Copier Paper.
“It›s important to first define what sustainability is. For me the sustainability means to do something over and over again with materials / resources that harm or cause minimum negative impact to the environment. Unless as a company or a society or an economy you are not able to deliver the product, service or whatever else you deal with repeatedly with the surety that there won’t be any residue left that will harm the environment, it is not sustainable”, says Pasari, who has been invited for an interactive panel on “Green initiatives in the Paper and Stationery Industry” at Paper world, Middle East. It is the largest international trade show in Middle East for Stationery, Paper and Office Supplies taking place in Dubai World Trade Center from Nov 21-23, 2023.
Indian Paper industry is not only conserving the environment but also regenerating natural resources. It uses mainly degraded marginal land to grow trees for paper. And also recycles the wastepaper and agricultural waste (like wheat straw) which otherwise would have been burnt in the fields. Paper industry has therefore struck a fine balance between growth and sustainability, unmatched by many other industries.
Paper industry is wood positive, that is, the industry continuously grows more trees through its agro/farm forestry initiative than it harvests. Paper is made from cultivated trees (trees-outside-forests) planted specially for this purpose. Trees cultivated for paper production emit tonnes of oxygen before they are harvested, thus helping the environment through carbon sequestration.
“While mills like ours which are recycled and the ones which are agro based in India are very sustainable, one significant initiative we took few years ago was to move from coal fired boiler to bio mass fired boiled. We all know the carbon emissions of coal vs bio mass, this helped us boost our ESG as well as increase our efficiency”, he adds
Consumer awareness is needed to generate awareness and bring the change. Two significant global pollution problems being faced are disposal of single-use plastic and e-waste. Paper provides an eco-friendly alternate in both areas.
Also, investing in R&D and latest technology is a must to innovate new processes and techniques and make the paper manufacturing as sustainable as possible. For e.g., with the help of our latest circular economy model, we have been able to produce paper up to 12 times from the waste provided by a company in India, without losing its quality and parameters. The company used to import this paper earlier and now is using the paper being manufactured by us.
The climate change is real and we have seen many floods, earthquakes and abnormal conditions in countries across the globe. For a sustainable future, the younger generation in every country needs to be responsible and aware of what they are consuming as a product.
Paper has been in the negative list whereas it should not be. There are other industries that use tree as raw material but are not spoken about. Paper is a green industry and moreover the recycled paper is the best thing to replace plastic and also the virgin paper.
Naynesh Pasari is MD, Shree Krishna Paper Mills & Industries Ltd