۱- Introduction

۲- Literature review

۳- Methodology

۴- MCDM for boxboard production

۵- Sensitivity analysis

۶- Conclusion

References

Abstract

Papermaking is a capital-intensive industry that requires a high consumption of plant fibers, energy, and water. Previous sustainability assessments of papermaking industry primarily focused on separate evaluations for multiple criteria without the integration for criteria and could not compare the overall priority of the production alternatives. The life cycle sustainability for the most representative boxboard production is analyzed as a case study in this work. Life cycle water consumption, energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and internal costs are selected as the assessment criteria. The two multi-criteria decision-making methods are applied to integrate the above criteria to obtain the sustainability sequence under different production pathways. When the papermaking enterprises are regarded as decision-makers, the alternative using waste paper as raw material to manufacture boxboard is the most sustainable, following by mixed fiber. The sustainability sequence of the alternatives using wood and straw as raw materials is controversial due to the different calculation models. Changing the proportion of raw materials and the criteria weights might adjust sustainability sequence of the alternatives.

Introduction

Papermaking is a capital-intensive industry with a long industrial chain, it contributes to about 3% of global end uses of energy (Ma et al., 2018), 2% of global industrial carbon emissions (Bajpai, 2016), and 40% of global industrial wastewater (Ashrafi et al., 2015). In China, the rapid development of papermaking industry brings extensive energy demand and high emission generation, the sustainable development of papermaking industry has received widespread attention (Ingwersen et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2016; Corcelli et al., 2018). As the largest paper producer around the world, the papermaking industry in China is surrounded by several challenges: the energy structure dominated by coal leads to significant emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) (Wang et al., 2016); the technology level varies greatly and too much capital is invested for unit product in some enterprises; low forest cover (Zhu et al., 2017) and policies on restricting deforestation prompt that papermaking industry has to import large quantities of wood and pulp board, resulting in increased cost and material replacement. Therefore, in order to achieve sustainable development of the papermaking industry, it needs to overcome environmental, economic and social obstacles. Since 2007, the production of boxboard has headed the list in China’s papermaking industry for 11 years and it accounted for 21.4% of the total paper production in 2017. Boxboard papermaking industry is still in a rising state with the development of packaging and logistics industries (CPA, 2017). The boxboard papermaking enterprises are widely distributed in every province in China, most of them use recycled waste paper to produce non-deinked pulp to manufacture boxboard, some sorts of high-grade boxboard are manufactured by using natural wood pulp cooked from wood chips or using natural straw pulp, the latter is mostly distributed in the major straw-producing area in north China. Besides, mixing virgin pulp and waste paper pulp as a raw material is also a common solution for the production of boxboard. Variety of production pathways have a different effect on the sustainability criteria for papermaking industry. The industrial process assessment (Wen et al., 2016; Li et al., 2015) and life cycle analysis (Man et al., 2018a; Ewijk et al., 2018) of papermaking industry analyzed environmental and economic criteria from different boundaries.