FutureMark is absolutely committed to not just providing environmentally sustainable paper, but also to producing our paper in the most environmentally responsible way. It’s something we’ve been doing for years. We employ a number of leading-edge technologies and processes to ensure we’re minimizing our environmental impact:
A. We have steadily increased our use of post-consumer waste and have adopted a number of process improvements that enable us to be better than carbon neutral in greenhouse gas assessments.
B. We recycled 120,000 tons (240 million pounds) of paper waste last year. To get a real sense for what we’re displacing from recovering, this is roughly equivalent to burying 12 football fields in 3 stories of waste paper.
C. Our production process is essentially free of hazardous waste and chemical pollutants.
i. Our clean production processes eliminate 100 tons/yr of VOCs. We’ve reduced VOC emissions by 90 percent in the last decade.
ii. The water used to wash our recycled fibers is clean and safe enough to be ejected into the city sewage system.
D. We source waste paper locally, and we’re in close proximity to most major customers, dramatically reducing our carbon footprint for transportation.
i. About 50 percent of the commercial printers that use our type of paper are located near us in the Midwest.
ii. We’re located within our primary source for paper fiber: the Chicago metropolitan area. Each day, we convert hundreds of tons of waste paper into high-quality, recycled paper for publications and product labels. Chicago is the “metropolitan forest” that provides us with a reliable, renewable source of recyclable paper.
E. We use very little water for a paper manufacturer: less than 3 million gallons per day.
i. According to the Environmental Paper Network’s Paper Calculator, we use 60 percent less water per year than the average virgin coated paper mill.
ii. This means we can operate for 2-1/2 years on the water they consume in 1 year.
iii. The water we save each year would fill 2,150 Olympic swimming pools.
F. The short fiber and coating minerals extracted during our de-inking process are repurposed as landscaping cover, composting mix and as a lime alternative for agricultural use.
G. We use only two-thirds the energy of your average coated paper mill, according to the Environmental Paper Network’s Paper Calculator.
i.The annual energy savings from our production process would be enough to power 11,837 homes.
ii. Our fuel source is natural gas, which is generally recognized as the cleanest of the fossil fuel sources.
Even though we’re very proud of our green production process, we continually look for ways to improve our environmental footprint.
- We recently began substituting a latex coating made from corn starch for petroleum-based coatings. That substitution the switch will result in reduced annual carbon emissions equal to taking 8,000 cars off the road.
- We’re expanding our closed loop recycling programs as we grow our relationships with green customers and printers.
For more information on FutureMark Paper’s environmental sustainability, visit our
Sustainability page
