Carbon Balanced Paper launches in North America to help organizations reduce the carbon impact of their paper and print communications
Since 2008, the Carbon Balanced Paper initiative has been responsible for balancing 190,000 tonnes of CO2 and preserving 19,000 acres of high conservation value land.
Carbon Balanced Paper (CBP) is launching in North America, administered by Sustainable Paper Group in partnership with international conservation charity World Land Trust (WLT). This is a well-established and successful program in Europe with over 3,000 organizations taking positive action by choosing Carbon Balanced Paper.
The launch in North America will enable brands and organizations in the United States and Canada to carbon balance any paper product, helping them to meet growing commitments to carbon reduction and carbon neutrality and to simply, yet effectively, differentiate themselves as market leaders in environmental responsibility.
The CBP program balances (offsets) the carbon impact of paper by investing in WLT projects. Through land purchase of ecologically important standing forests under real and imminent threat of clearance, carbon is locked that would otherwise be released. These protected forests are then able to continue absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. The CBP program follows the principles of REDD+ (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), now recognized as one of the most effective and fastest ways to stop the rise in atmospheric CO2 and global warming effects. Deforestation and forest degradation account for approximately 11 per cent of carbon emissions, more than the entire global transportation sector and second only to the energy sector.1 Therefore, forest protection and restoration must play a central role in the fight against climate change.
The North American CBP initiative is made widely available through a network of partners and distributors, including U.S.-based paper merchants Midland and WCP Solutions, and Canada-based merchant West World Paper.