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CPI: BBC has not provided full picture on paper

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Harrabin among pulpwood logs at BillerudKorsnäs. Image: BBC
Harrabin among pulpwood logs at BillerudKorsnäs. Image: BBC

The Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI) has accused the BBC of failing to provide the full picture in a documentary about reducing carbon.

The programme, The Art of Cutting Carbon, was made by outgoing BBC energy and environment analyst Roger Harrabin.

The BBC commissioned a number of art installations to highlight the carbon dioxide emitted by “big industries around us” including concrete, steel, aluminium, plastic and cardboard. 

In the segment about paper, Harrabin visited a BillerudKorsnäs mill in Sweden. 

Although he described paper as “a fantastic material” he also said that “countless trees are felled from the world’s great forests” to make paper, and described pulp and paper as “another one of the world’s biggest CO2 emitting industries”.

“We really need to cut the amount of paper and card we use,” Harrabin stated. 

BillerudKorsnäs is 97% fossil free thanks to its use of biofuels, and all of its raw materials come from sustainably managed forests. 

The CPI said the BBC had failed to give the full picture. 

Director general Andrew Large said: “I’m disappointed that the BBC has chosen to present this partial and potentially misleading report on the paper industry. The UK’s Paper-based Industries are taking a leading role in the net zero circular bioeconomy and we are more than happy to present and discuss our achievements and positive plans for the future.

“We hope that the BBC and other media outlets will engage with us to give the British public the full picture.” 

The CPI also took issue with the ‘de-printing’ technology shown in the piece. 

“Disappointingly, this recent BBC article presented the de-inking of paper as being novel. The method shown may be innovative, but industrial scale de-inking has been a fact of life for the commercial recycling of newsprint and office paper for many decades.”

It pointed out that last year the UK recovered 71% of all paper used, while 22% is unrecoverable anyway.

Across Europe, including the UK, the average recycled content of a corrugated box is 88%. 

The CPI also noted that by 2021 carbon emissions in UK papermaking had already fallen by 72%, compared with 1990 levels, and continue to decline.

The federation also said the UK’s paper-based industries are committed to decarbonisation by 2050.

The Art of Cutting Carbon will be available on BBC iPlayer for 11 months. 

The programme was Harrabin's swansong in his current role. He left the BBC to go freelance this week. 

Environment Paper