Journal of Cleaner Production 11 (2003) 5159

www.cleanerproduction.net

Application of life cycle assessment to the Portuguese pulp and

paper industry
E. Lopes, A. Dias, L. Arroja , I. Capela, F. Pereira
Department of Environment and Planning, University of Aveiro, 3810 Aveiro, Portugal
Received 15 July 2000; received in revised form 20 August 2001; accepted 18 January 2002

Abstract
In this paper, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology is applied to Portuguese printing and writing paper in order to
compare the environmental impact of the use of two kinds of fuels (heavy fuel oil and natural gas) in the pulp and paper production
processes. The results of inventory analysis and impact assessment show that the pulp and paper production processes play an
important role in almost all of the analysed parameters, which do not always result in an important contribution to the corresponding
impact categories. The substitution of heavy fuel oil by natural gas in the pulp and paper production processes seems to be environmentally positive. 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: LCA; Pulp; Paper; Eucalyptus globulus; Natural gas; Heavy fuel oil

1. Introduction
The concept of sustainability is becoming increasingly
important in the Portuguese pulp and paper industry,
which is one of the most important economic activities
in Portugal. In order to improve its environmental performance, this industry has made important investments,
not only in the production process itself, but also in the
flue gases and liquid effluents treatment systems. Besides
this concern regarding pollution prevention, one of the
issues of most relevance in the context of sustainability
is the consumption of energy. Traditionally, Portuguese
mills have used fuel oil as a fossil fuel in the chemical
recovery system in pulp production and for on-site
energy production in paper manufacturing. However, a
new source of primary energy is now becoming available
for the Portuguese industry with the recent installation
of a national grid of natural gas. The utilisation of this
alternative fossil fuel instead of fuel oil constitutes an
interesting option from both the environmental and economic point of view. This is particularly true in paper
production where energy production in a combined cycle

Corresponding author. Tel.: +351 234 370 200; fax: +351 234
429 290.
E-mail address: arroja@dao.ua.pt (L. Arroja).

seems appealing for reasons related to energy rationalisation issues. More than being aware of the consequences
of natural gas utilisation in the mills, it is important to
evaluate the global impact of this process modification
through the whole paper life cycle. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is thus the most appropriate tool to achieve
this purpose, allowing a global overview of this activity.
In this study, LCA methodology was applied to Portuguese production of printing and writing paper in order
to evaluate its environmental performance and also to
make a comparative environmental assessment of fuel
oil and natural gas, respectively, as energy sources in
the manufacturing process.

2. Methodology
This study was performed using a methodological
framework based on ISO (International Organization for
Standardization) recommendations [14]. According to
ISO, LCA is divided into four phases: goal and scope
definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment and
interpretation.
The goal and scope definition is extremely important
since the study will be carried out according to the statements made in this phase. The goal must refer the
intended application and audience, and the reasons for

0959-6526/02/$ - see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
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E. Lopes et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 11 (2003) 5159

conducting the study. In the scope definition, the following items, among others, should be described: system
under study, functional unit (FU), system boundaries,
allocation procedures, impact assessment methodologies,
data quality requirements and assumptions.
The inventory analysis involves data collection on raw
materials and energy consumption, emissions to air,
water and soil and solid waste generation.
The impact assessment phase assigns inventory results
to impact categories and quantifies the system potential
contribution to different environmental impacts.
Finally, in the interpretation phase, the inventory
analysis and impact assessment results are discussed and
the significant environmental issues are identified to
reach conclusions and recommendations consistent with
the goal and scope requirements.
Fig. 1.

2.1. Goal and scope definition

2.1.1. Purpose
The purpose of this study is the identification and
assessment of the environmental impacts associated with
the production, use and final disposal of printing and
writing paper produced in Portugal from Eucalyptus globulus and consumed in Portugal.
The two main reasons for conducting this study are:
to determine the contribution of different (groups of)
processes to the printing and writing paper life cycle
environmental impact;
to compare the potential environmental impacts of
two different fossil fuel sources (natural gas and
heavy fuel oil) used in the eucalyptus pulp production
process and for on-site energy production in paper
production.
2.1.2. Product description
The product under study is printing and writing paper.
The raw materials used in the production of paper are
eucalyptus pulp, softwood pulp produced in Scandinavia
and precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC).
2.1.3. Product system description and boundaries
The system under study produces eucalyptus pulp and
printing and writing paper using the typical technology
currently available in Portuguese mills. The softwood
pulp production uses typical Scandinavian modern technology.
The system boundaries, schematically represented in
Fig. 1, include the following subsystems:

Eucalyptus globulus forest,

softwood forest,
softwood pulp production,
Eucalyptus globulus pulp production,
printing and writing paper production,

System boundaries.

final disposal (recycling, landfilling and composting),

chemical production,
transport,
electric energy production,
fuel production (including extraction).
Excluded from the system boundaries are:

the production and maintenance of capital goods

(buildings, machinery, etc.),
the production of plants used in forest plantation,
the inputs and outputs that represent less than 1% of
the printing and writing paper mass,
the paper utilisation phase.
2.1.4. Functional unit
The primary purpose of the functional unit (FU) is to
provide a reference unit to which the inventory data are
normalised. In this study, the FU was defined as 1 tonne
of white printing and writing paper, with a standard
weight of 80 g/m2, produced from Portuguese Eucalyptus globulus kraft pulp and consumed in Portugal.
2.1.5. Allocation
The allocation procedures were applied following ISO
recommendations [2]:
whenever possible, allocation was avoided by unit
process division or system boundaries expansion,
where allocation could not be avoided, the outputs
and inputs of the system were partitioned among its
different products or functions in a way that reflects
physical relationships among them,
when physical relationships could not be established,
the inputs and outputs were allocated between the
products and functions in a way that reflects other
relationships among them (for example mass or economic relationships).

E. Lopes et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 11 (2003) 5159

2.1.6. Impact assessment methodology

The impact assessment conducted in this study considers the following impact categories:
global warming (GW), using the IPCC global warming potentials for 100 years [5];
acidification (A), using the acidification potentials
defined by Hauschild and Wenzel, 1997 [6];
eutrophication (E), using the weighting factors for the
maximum-scenario defined in [5];
non-renewable resource depletion (NRRD), using the
reserve-to-use ratios taken from [5];
photochemical oxidant formation (POF), using the
photochemical ozone creation potentials defined by
Heijungs et al., 1992 [5].
2.1.7. Data quality requirements
Whenever possible and feasible, inventory data were
provided by the pulp and paper industry and by other
involved bodies, and checked by mass and energy balances. The remaining data were taken from the literature
and specialised databases.
2.2. Inventory analysis
Inventory data were collected for the purpose of
characterisation of the identified subsystems in the paper
life cycle.
2.2.1. Eucalyptus forest
The production of eucalyptus includes forest installation, forest growth and wood harvesting. The plant production was excluded from this study, since the environmental burdens associated with this stage were
considered irrelevant. Forest installation and growth
comprises path opening, land preparation, soil preparation, deep fertilisation, plantation, pest control, soil
mobilisation and soil fertilisation. Wood harvesting
includes felling, debarking, cutting, off-road hauling and
truck loading.
The mass and energy consumptions are typical data
gathered from Portuguese harvested eucalyptus forests
[7]. The air emissions associated with fuel consumption
in the mechanical operations were calculated using emission factors for diesel and petrol [8].
2.2.2. Softwood forest
This subsystem includes pine growth and pine harvesting, 75% of which is done by regeneration felling
and 25% by thinning. Inventory data are average Finnish
data from 1989 (wood growth) and 1995 (wood
harvesting) taken from KCL-EcoData database [9].
2.2.3. Softwood pulp production
Softwood pulp is used as a raw material in printing
and writing paper production and it is imported from

53

Scandinavia. Data on the production of softwood pulp

include the pulping process, ECF bleaching with oxygen
delignification and reduced chlorine dioxide consumption, pulp drying, activated sludge plant, sludge combustion, energy generation from bark and concentrated black
liquor (liquor from wood cooking) and mill condensation
power plant. These data were taken from KCL-EcoData
database [9] and refer to 1997 typical Finnish technology
for the production of market softwood kraft pulp.
Since the softwood pulp production process defined in
this study produces surplus electricity, the environmental
burdens associated with the production of the same
amount of electricity in the Finnish grid were subtracted
from the inputs and outputs of this subsystem.
2.2.4. Eucalyptus globulus pulp production
To perform this study, two scenarios were defined:
actual scenario (AS): eucalyptus pulp and paper integrated production using heavy fuel oil
natural gas scenario (NGS): eucalyptus pulp and
paper integrated production using natural gas.
The production of eucalyptus pulp includes the woodyard, wood cooking, brownstock washing and screening,
ECF (elemental chlorine free) pulp bleaching using
chlorine dioxide produced on site, chlorine dioxide production, chemical recovery, energy generation from bark
and concentrated black liquor, wastewater treatment in
an activated sludge plant and solid waste landfilling. The
lime kiln is a part of the chemical recovery system and
its role is to recover lime to be recycled. Besides the
heavy fuel oil or natural gas, the lime kiln burns noncondensable gases from the cooking and black liquor
evaporation plants.
In order to quantify only the inputs and outputs of
integrated pulp production, allocation procedures were
applied to this process:
none of the existing Portuguese pulp mills is 100%
integrated, since they also produce surplus market
pulp for export. To avoid allocation, the existing systems were disaggregated and the environmental burdens associated with the drying section of the pulp
mill were excluded from the study;
the surplus electricity production in the eucalyptus
pulp manufacturing was taken into account, considering its alternative production in the Portuguese grid.
2.2.5. Printing and writing paper production
The printing and writing paper production includes
eucalyptus pulp transfer, softwood pulp bales pulping,
pulp refining, cleaning and screening, broke recovery,
paper machine, finishing, wastewater treatment in an
activated sludge plant and on site energy production. In
the actual scenario, energy requirements are satisfied by

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E. Lopes et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 11 (2003) 5159

electricity and steam produced on-site in a heavy fuel

oil boiler, plus electricity from the national grid. In the
natural gas scenario, energy requirements are entirely
satisfied by electricity and steam generated in a combined cycle system (gas turbine, gas boiler and steam
turbine), with the surplus electricity produced exported
to the national grid.
Actual inventory data for the current scenario were
provided by the Portuguese pulp and paper industry, and
were checked by mass and energy balances. With respect
to the natural gas scenario, the inventory data were taken
from studies carried out by the Portuguese industry.
2.2.6. Final disposal
Currently, final disposal alternatives in Portugal for
printing and writing wastepaper are recycling (11%),
landfilling (84%) and composting (5%).

basis. Besides being an alternative for final disposal of

wastepaper, composting also produces a valuable product (compost) displacing the usage of chemical fertilizers. Therefore some credit should be given to this process, but the lack of quantitative data concerning the
reduction in chemical fertilizer application precluded the
assessment of that credit in this study.
2.2.7. Chemical production
The environmental burdens associated with the production of chemicals used as feedstocks in several subsystems throughout the paper life cycle were included in
this study in order to comply with the cut-off criteria.
In addition, the production of hydrogen peroxide and
sodium chlorate was included because, according to the
literature, [12] they are energy-intensive processes.
Inventory data were collected from the literature [8,13].

2.2.6.1. Recycling The inventory data refer to typical

Portuguese data for the production of packaging papers
(testliner and fluting) since most of the recovered used
paper is integrated in the production of these kinds of
papers. The recycling technology includes pulping,
screening, refining, washing, drying and finishing. This
subsystem also includes primary treatment of wastewater
and on-site energy production in a heavy fuel oil boiler
and in a diesel engine.
In the characterisation of this subsystem some allocation procedures had to be applied since recycling fulfils an additional function: the production of a new product (testliner and fluting). Allocation was avoided by
expanding the system boundaries in order to include
kraftliner production (testliner and fluting equivalent
product made of virgin fibre). The inputs and outputs of
the kraftliner production [10] were subtracted from the
inventory of the recycling subsystem. The basic assumption is that the use of secondary fibre displaces the use
of virgin fibre.

2.2.8. Transports
This subsystem includes the circulation, between subsystems, of wood, softwood pulp, paper, wastepaper,
chemicals and fuels by 16 tonne, 28 tonne and garbage
trucks, ocean ships and electric trains. The travelled distances were provided by the involved bodies and the
emission factors were obtained from the literature [8].

2.2.6.2. Landfilling
70% of the landfill sites considered in this final disposal alternative include systems
for leachate control, collection and treatment, and 30%
represent uncontrolled tipping, the latter meaning that
landfill sites are not lined with an impermeable layer or
layers, and do not include systems for leachate control,
collection and treatment. In both cases the landfill gas
is neither burnt nor used for energy recovery. Inventory
data were based on data from literature [11] allocated to
the paper fraction of municipal solid waste (MSW) on
a causality basis. When leachate treatment occurs, liquid
emissions were calculated considering Portuguese wastewater discharge legislation.

2.2.10. Fuel production

This subsystem comprises the precombustion of the
consumed fuels in the other paper life cycle stages. The
fuels considered are heavy fuel oil, light fuel oil, diesel
oil and natural gas. Inventory data were taken from the
literature [14].

2.2.6.3. Composting Input and output data correspond

to the European average technology [11]. Allocation to
the paper fraction of MSW was done on a causality

2.2.9. Electric energy production

Some subsystems purchase electricity from the
national grid, while others have a surplus of electricity
production. Taking into account the subsystems geographic boundaries the following electricity production
grids were characterised: Portugal, Spain, France,
Belgium, Finland and UCPTE (Union for the Connection
of Production and Transportation of Electricity). Inventory data regarding these models were obtained in the
literature [8]; besides electricity production, they include
fuel extraction, processing and transportation
(precombustion).

2.3. Impact assessment

In the first step of the impact assessment phase
(classification) the inventory results are assigned to different impact categories, based on the expected types of
impact on the environment. Table 1 shows the inventory
parameters considered in this study and the impact categories selected for analysis.
In the next step of impact assessment
(characterisation), the total potential contribution from

E. Lopes et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 11 (2003) 5159

55

Table1
Impact categories and corresponding parameters
Impact category

Parameters

Global warming, 100 years (GW)

Acidification (A)
Eutrophication (E)
Non-renewable resource depletion (NRRD)
Photochemical oxidant formation (POF)

Non-renewable CO2, CH4, N2O

SO2, NOx, HCl, NH3, HF, H2S
NOx air, NH3 air, N water, NO3 water, NH4+ water, P water, PO43 water, COD water
Crude oil, Natural gas, Coal
CH4, Halogenated hydrocarbons, Aromatic hydrocarbons

all inputs and outputs to the different impact categories

is calculated using weighting factors [5,6].
The impact assessment stage may also include normalisation, grouping and weighting of the impact categories leading to a single environmental score. Since
according to ISO standards [3] these are optional
elements, they were not performed in this study.

3. Results
3.1. Inventory analysis results
It is possible to make a first interpretation at the inventory analysis level based on individual parameters. The
inventory results consist of an exhaustive list of parameters, but in this paper only the parameters commonly
discussed from an environmental point of view are analysed: non-renewable and renewable energy consumption, non-renewable carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen
oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), chemical oxygen
demand (COD) and adsorbable organic halogens (AOX).
Figs. 24 show the energy consumption, the air emissions and the water emissions at the different stages of
the paper life cycle, for the actual scenario and for the
natural gas scenario. It is important to note that only the

Fig. 2.

CO2 originated during the combustion of non-renewable

fuels (non-renewable CO2) was considered, since one of
the assumptions of this study is that the CO2 released
from renewable sources (renewable CO2) is balanced by
CO2 absorption in the forest.
3.1.1. Energy consumption
The two parameters selected for analysis are renewable and non-renewable energy. Renewable energy is
energy that is contained in the renewable fuels and/or
resources (water, wood, bark and black liquor) consumed across the paper life cycle for energy production.
Non-renewable energy refers to the energy content of
the fossil fuels consumed in the whole system.
The eucalyptus pulp production process is the most
important consumer of renewable energy since all the
energy produced in this subsystem is based on renewable
fuels (bark and black liquor). As shown in Fig. 2, final
disposal has a negative contribution to this parameter,
which reflects the credits given to the recycling process
in the inventory analysis.
When the fuel source changes from heavy fuel oil to
natural gas there is a slight decrease in this parameter
(renewable energy consumption) exclusively due to the
contribution of the electric energy production subsystem
that, as a result of the surplus electricity production in

Inventory results: energy consumption.

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E. Lopes et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 11 (2003) 5159

Fig. 3. Inventory results: air emissions.

Fig. 4.

Inventory results: water emissions.

the paper production process, becomes negative. This

means that the renewable energy consumption avoided
by the exportation of electricity to the national grid
exceeds the renewable energy associated with the electricity consumption in the other stages of the paper
life cycle.
When it comes to non-renewable energy consumption,
the most important contributor is on-site energy production in the printing and writing paper production in
both scenarios. This contribution increases significantly
when natural gas replaces heavy fuel oil since, in terms
of energy, the amount of natural gas consumed during
paper production is higher than the one of heavy fuel oil
in the present scenario. This increase, however, does not
result in an increase in the systems total contribution to
non-renewable energy consumption because of the surplus electricity generated in the paper production process
in the natural gas scenario.

3.1.2. Air emissions

Comparing the non-renewable CO2 emissions and
non-renewable energy consumption in Figs. 2 and 3, it
is possible to see that these two parameters have
approximately the same profile. Thus, the major source
of non-renewable CO2 emissions is on-site energy production in the paper production process. The substitution
of heavy fuel oil by natural gas leads to a reduction of
approximately 50% in total emissions.
Most of NOx emissions are generated by transport,
and among these mainly by the transportation of eucalyptus wood from the forest to the pulp mill (Fig. 3). The
eucalyptus pulp production is the second most important
contribution to this parameter due to black liquor combustion. The paper production also has a significant contribution to NOx emissions in the heavy fuel oil scenario
due to on-site energy production, which is remarkably
reduced to 0.5% in the natural gas scenario. With the

E. Lopes et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 11 (2003) 5159

replacement of heavy fuel oil by natural gas, a reduction

of more than 40% is reached in the total emissions of
NOx mainly caused by a decrease in these emissions in
the paper production together with the avoided NOx
emissions in electricity production.
As far as the SO2 emissions are concerned, the main
source in the present scenario is on-site energy production during the paper production (Fig. 3). The eucalyptus pulp production and the electric energy production
also have an important contribution. It is important to
point out that the contribution of electric energy production is mainly related with the production of electricity for the paper production process. Changing the
fuel source to natural gas, SO2 emissions are reduced by
more than 98%, since the SO2 emissions avoided by
the production of electricity in the paper production process almost equal the total SO2 emissions generated
throughout the paper life cycle. In this scenario the paper
production contribution becomes meaningless and the
major source is final disposal, followed by chemical and
eucalyptus pulp production.
3.1.3. Water emissions
The eucalyptus pulp production is the most important
source of COD emissions in both scenarios, followed by
the paper production and the softwood pulp production,
as can be seen in Fig. 4. The total contribution of the
other subsystems is negligible.
AOX emissions appear mostly in the pulp production
processes, due to the chlorine dioxide consumption in
the bleaching process. The eucalyptus pulp production
contributes with more than 80% to this parameter, and
the softwood pulp production contributes with almost
20%.
As expected, the different fuel sources do not affect
the results of these parameters.
3.2. Impact assessment results
The results of the impact assessment phase for the
actual scenario and for the natural gas scenario are
shown in Fig. 5.
3.2.1. Global warming
Most of global warming potential results from the
final disposal of printing and writing wastepaper. This
important contribution is mainly originated by methane
(CH4) emissions that occur during wastepaper landfilling. Although the systems total CO2 emissions are
eight (natural gas scenario) to 15 (heavy fuel oil
scenario) times greater than total CH4 emissions, the latter assumes a more important role in this impact category
since its global warming potential is 24.5 times greater
than the one of CO2, according to Table 1. The second
most important contributor to this potential impact is onsite energy production in paper production, exclusively

57

due to CO2 emissions. The replacement of heavy fuel

oil by natural gas originates a reduction in the systems
global warming potential of about 20%, as a result of
the decreased CO2 emissions in the natural gas scenario
as explained in the interpretation of the inventory analysis results.
3.2.2. Acidification
In the present scenario, paper production is the most
important contributor to the overall acidification potential, which is mainly due to SO2 emissions from on-site
energy production. Transport, eucalyptus pulp production and electric energy production are important
contributors as well. In the transport subsystem the contribution to acidification is dominated by NOx emissions
while in the two other subsystems, SO2 emissions are
mainly responsible. In the natural gas scenario a
reduction of almost 75% of the overall acidification
potential is observed. This happens mostly as a result of
the paper production contribution reduction to nearly
zero, and of the avoided emissions by the surplus electricity production in paper manufacturing. In addition,
the acidification potentials of the eucalyptus pulp and
fuels production subsystems undergo slight decreases,
which also contribute to the overall reduction.
3.2.3. Eutrophication
The largest contribution to the overall eutrophication
potential comes from the eucalyptus pulp production,
mainly as a result of its COD emissions. Transport and
paper production are also relevant subsystems contributing to this impact category. In the transport subsystem
this is mainly due to NOx emissions while in the paper
production subsystem COD emissions are dominant. The
overall eutrophication potential is reduced by more than
20% with the replacement of heavy fuel oil by natural
gas, due to a decrease in the paper production contribution (caused by a decrease in NOx emissions from onsite energy production) and from the avoided emissions by the surplus electricity production in paper
manufacturing. The eutrophication potentials of the
eucalyptus pulp and fuel production subsystems undergo
slight decreases, which contributes to the overall
reduction as well.
3.2.4. Non-renewable resource depletion
Paper production is the subsystem contributing most
to non-renewable resource depletion. The reason for this
is that the paper production subsystem consumes exclusively non-renewable fuels (heavy fuel oil or natural gas,
according to the different scenarios) for on-site steam
and electricity production. The second most important
contribution to this impact category is that of transport,
because it comes from the consumption of diesel oil and
heavy fuel oil by the several modes of conveyance
throughout the paper life cycle. The overall potential to

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E. Lopes et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 11 (2003) 5159

Fig. 5.

Impact assessment results.

this impact category is reduced by more than 45% in the

natural gas scenario, mainly due to the surplus of electricity generated in the paper production process. In
addition, the contributions of the eucalyptus pulp and
paper productions are smaller in the natural gas scenario.

3.2.5. Photochemical oxidant formation

The final disposal of wastepaper contributes almost
100% to the overall photochemical oxidant formation
potential due to the CH4 emissions from wastepaper
landfilling. Thus, there are no significant differences in
the photochemical oxidant formation potential between
the two alternative scenarios.

4. Conclusions
Based on the inventory analysis and impact assessment results, the following conclusions can be drawn
concerning the contribution of the different processes to
the printing and writing paper life cycle environmental
impact, which was one the reasons stated for carrying
out this study:
the printing and writing paper production is the most
important contributor to non-renewable CO2 emissions due to on-site energy production, which does
not correspond, however, to a major contribution to
the overall global warming potential. Actually, in Portugal this impact category is dominated by CH4 emissions from wastepaper landfilling. On-site energy production in the paper production subsystem is the
major source of SO2 emissions, which makes it the
most significant contributor to the acidification impact
category. This subsystem is also the main consumer
of non-renewable energy and, as a result, it is responsible for the most important share of the global system

potential impact concerning non-renewable resource

depletion.
although the eucalyptus pulp production is the largest
consumer of energy throughout the paper life cycle,
its contribution to air emissions is not predominant,
because almost 95% of the energy consumed in the
eucalyptus pulp production process is renewable
energy from bark and black liquor combustion.
Consequently, this subsystem has the highest renewable energy consumption in the paper life cycle. The
eucalyptus pulp production is also an important contributor to acidification since it is one of the major
sources of SO2 emissions, and furthermore dominates
the results for water emissions (COD and AOX), thus
being responsible for a great part of the overall
eutrophication potential.
the final disposal stage assumes a predominant role in
global warming and photochemical oxidant formation
impact categories, as a result of the CH4 emissions
in landfilling.
transport is the main source of NOx emissions,
resulting in an important contribution to the eutrophication and acidification impact categories.
the contribution of the remaining stages of the paper
life cycle to the impact categories is not relevant.

The replacement of heavy fuel oil by natural gas in

the eucalyptus pulp and paper production processes
appears to be environmentally positive, provided that a
cogeneration unit is installed to produce energy in the
paper making process. In this way, this process, which in
the present scenario is a net energy consumer, becomes
a net exporter to the national electricity grid, with the
corresponding avoided emissions. This modification
significantly reduces the total emissions of CO2, SO2 and
NOx, leading to a smaller potential contribution from the
global system to global warming, acidification and

E. Lopes et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 11 (2003) 5159

eutrophication. Changing the fuel source to natural gas

also decreases the non-renewable resource depletion by
more than 45%.

[4]

[5]

Acknowledgements
[6]

This study has been performed in association with the

project Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Environmental Impact Assessment of the Activity: From Eucalypt to
Paper (3/3.2/PAPEL/2323/95) which is financed by the
FCT Fundac a o para a Cie ncia e Tecnologia and by
the program PRAXIS XXI. The authors would also like
to thank Emporsil, Portucel Industrial, Soporcel and
RAIZ for their collaboration in providing first hand
information and inventory data.

[7]
[8]

[9]
[10]
[11]

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