Life cycle energy assessment of environmental reporting: Focus on paper-based environmental management reporting by Japanese automotive manufacturers

There is considerable pressure from consumers, legislation, voluntary organizations, growing green supply chains, global protocols and from the increasingly environmentally educated public, on organizations to demonstrate that protection of the environment is at the core of their management strategies. Organisations have responded by documenting their environmental activities. However, the energy impact of reporting activities is not taken into account when assessing the effects of environmental management systems (EMS) on organisations. This paper evaluates the energy consumption of distributing paper-based annual environmental management reports in Japan, focusing on the automotive industry. Energy consumption models are developed within a life cycle assessment (LCA) framework and applied to the paper-based traditional information dissemination systems by the Japanese automotive manufacturers. A postal system model is developed for energy consumption in traditional mail distribution in Japan under six different scenarios, for road, rail, sea and air transportation. The study contributes to knowledge and debate on the energy impacts of environmental management systems. Based on this study, parallels can be drawn for other communication systems like for education, training, newsletters and general paper systems, which are prevalent in EMS.