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By purchasing Clairefontaine products, consumers can do their bit to protect an environment for which they are becoming increasingly concerned. Among the product ranges produced by Papeteries de Clairefontaine, a number of products stand out for their environmentally-friendly characteristics.
Take the Clairmail A4 reams for example; Papeteries de Clairefontaine has produced a 60 gsm paper providing a high standard of quality for photocopying and laser printing. The major advantage of this product is a 25% saving on raw materials, as it may be used just like an 80 gsm paper. The light weight of this product means that deliveries are lighter, which reduces CO2 emissions during transport. The reduced thickness also means that less space will be needed for filing.
The Everbal site near Rheims has worked for over 25 years with recycled papers. The site concentrates on using recovered papers in their entirety without deinking or using optical whiteners or chlorine. The manufacturing procedures applied have resulted in record production levels with 100 kg of paper being produced from only 106 kg of recovered paper. This also means there is little waste to get rid of. On the other hand, other manufacturing procedures and deinking lead to significant amounts of fibres and fillers being lost (about 20 to 30%), with equal amounts of waste to get rid of too. The Everbal site is ISO 9001-, APUR- (Association des Producteurs et des Utilisateurs de papiers-cartons Recyclés – Association of Producers and Users of Recycled Paper and Card) and Ange Bleu- (Blue Angel) certified and has also been certified by the Water Authority to the effect that the site protects the environment and manages its use of water.
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Clairefontaine for many years has incorporated environmental policy into the design of its products. Each stage of the finished product is taken into account, from selecting the pulp and the production process, right through to the final procedures. As far as the group is concerned, environmental protection is part of a policy which applies right across the board, just like achieving quality standards.
 The proof is that the original environmental features of the historic Etival site have been preserved right through to the present day. What’s even more impressive is that a number of years ago the group acquired a biological treatment station for this site with respect to which it received a Water Trophy as well as an award from the Environment Ministry.
For Clairefontaine, where environmental protection is concerned, water comes first.
The Exacompta Clairefontaine group’s environmental strategy also focuses on forest management and reducing greenhouse gases and the environmental undertaking forms a basis for its industrial policy. The group is ISO 14001-certified for its production of different papers and the manufacture of stationery articles.
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To make an active contribution to safeguarding natural resources, Clairefontaine has been innovating for a number of years, implementing industrial procedures which do not harm the environment.
Water : The site at Étival has a biological treatment station (Water Trophy and award from the Environment Ministry). The station gets rid of nearly all the substances contained in the water.
Effluents : These account for less than 1% of the site’s production (about 500 tonnes daily). Clairefontaine has shown itself to be a pioneer in this field too. The group was the first to install a composting plant to convert biological sludge into stable compost. Named Clairagra, this compost has been approved by the Environment Ministry which means that it is no longer used as a waste product.
When spread on fields, Clairagra helps improve the soil quality.
Greenhouse gases and global warming: Paper production, and in particular drying, require high levels of energy (50 tonnes of steam per hour and 12,000 KW). Clairefontaine has found the solution by equipping its thermal power plant with a twin gas-turbine co-generation unit which has a waste heat boiler. This system enables the factory to be more than 80% self-sufficient for its electricity needs and also eliminate sulphur residue in the environment. What’s more, carbon dioxide emitted is recovered to produce the mineral filler (calcium carbonate precipitate) which makes paper white and strong.
Chlorine : Clairefontaine does not order pulp bleached using elemental chlorine. The oxidisers (oxygen-based reagents) used nowadays for making paper white no longer produce any dioxin-type products (also known as ECF and TCF pulps).
And naturally, the group makes every effort to restrict the emission of volatile organic compounds and dangerous substances contained in inks, glues and other solutions used for printing.
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Clairefontaine use 150,000 tonnes of pulp each year to produce its exercise books, notepads, and loose sheets, etc., which come solely from forests which have been FSC- or PEFC-certified for their environmental management.
Forestry certification shows that a forest is exploited pursuant to certain number of regulations. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization defines sustainable forest management as follows: “Sustainable forest management means the stewardship and use of forests and forest lands in a way, and at a rate, that maintains their biodiversity, productivity, regeneration capacity, vitality and their potential to fulfil, now and in the future, relevant ecological, economic and social functions, at local, national, and global levels, and that does not cause damage to other ecosystems.” (Wikipedia)
Generally speaking, the certification systems take the following into account :
- the total woodland area (given that forests are carbon “traps”)
- the age of the forest
- the protection of plant and animal biodiversity
- the interests of local populations as well as society- and leisure-related aspects.
The main environment certification systems for forests include the PEFC (Pan European Forest Certification), the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) and the SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative – United States and Canada). At present, there are hardly any forests exploited for pulp production in a manner that does not conform with the principles set forth by these certification systems. And, contrary to certain opinions, the younger a tree is, the more able it is to eliminate carbon dioxide.
Forests, comprising 140 different varieties of trees, cover a quarter of the land in France and the forested area increases by over 25,000 hectares each year. Wood consumed by the paper industry accounts for only 10% of annual French forest production and comes mainly from sawmill waste and thinning. The group owns and maintains hundreds of hectares of fir and spruce trees in the Vosges department. It uses these woodland areas to carry out tests to find the most environmentally-friendly management procedures possible. (Sources: Cerig, Copacel)
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SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 
