Abstract
We capitalize on access to plant-level data in examining the changes in emissions of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), total suspended solids (TSS), and greenhouse gas (GHG) for a set of Canadian pulp and paper mills from 2005 to 2013. In particular, we investigate the roles played by changes in output, emission intensity, allocation of production among surviving plants, and plant closures. Output change is the main factor and improvement of emission intensity by surviving plants—the so-called technique effect—brings a small, yet positive contribution. However, there are no indications that market operations determining plant output and plant survival lead to lower emissions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Aldy (2016) presents two frameworks, social welfare and political economy, to evaluate the competitive concerns related to GHG emission mitigating policies.
See Levinson (2015) for a list of related studies.
Greenstone et al. (2012) use US plant data to analyze the impact of environmental regulation on plant total factor productivity (TFP). Bae (2017) analyzes the changes in toxic releases by 351 plants in Upstate New York from 2006 to 2010. None of these studies analyze the evolution of plant emission intensity. We briefly discuss their works in Sect. 3.
According to Hailu (2003), there were 162 pulp and paper mills in Canada in 1994.
This is a response to a US program. In 2008, the US pulp producers found a tax loophole under the Alternative Fuels Mixture Tax Credit that allowed them to receive tax credits of $0.50 per gallon for the production of a mixture of black liquor and diesel. A total of $7.9 billion is estimated to have been granted as subsidy before the end of the program on December 31, 2009.
We thank one of the referees for mentioning this point.
Street address is used to check ownership or name change.
US is the major importer of newsprint from Canada. Between 2000 and 2005, newsprint consumption in the USA decreased by 24.5%, from 12.7 million MT to 9.6 million MT. (FAO 2002, 2007 and 2014)
There were pulp and paper mills in all Canadian provinces in 2005 with the exception of Prince Edward Island.
FPAC classification also includes a fifth group—board mills manufacturing from chemical pulp produced on-site only (NAICS 322130). Since very few mills belong to this category and data are available for only one mill, this group is not included in our analysis.
References
Adès J, Bernard J-T, González P (2012) Energy use and GHG emissions in the Quebec pulp and paper industry, 1990–2006. Can Public Policy 38(1):71–90
Aldy JE (2016) Frameworks for evaluating policy approaches to address the competitiveness concerns of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, Resources for the Future discussion paper 16-06. http://ssrn.com/abstract=2738759, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2738759
Bae H (2017) Do plants decrease pollution reduction efforts during a recession? Evidence from Upstate New York chemical plants during the US great recession. Env Res Econ 66(4):671–687. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-015-9967-0
Brunel C (2017) Pollution offshoring and emission reductions in EU and US manufacturing. Env Res Econ 68(3):621–641. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-016-0035-1
CIEEDAC (2015) Energy use and related data: canadian paper manufacturing industries, (1990) to 2013, report prepared by Canadian Industrial Energy End-use Data and Analysis Centre, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, for the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC). http://www2.cieedac.sfu.ca/media/publications/Pulp_Paper_Analysis_2014__2013__Final-2.pdf. Accessed 12 Jan 2016
Environment and Climate Change Canada (2012) Status report on the pulp and paper effluent regulations, Environment Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, 2012. https://ec.gc.ca/Publications/A231D61D-E897-4257-9E4B-F65CF5A8B5AD/780_PPER_Status_Report_e_04.pdf. Accessed 10 Jan 2016
Environment and Climate Change Canada (2016) Canadian environmental sustainability indicators: managing pulp and paper effluent quality in Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Ottawa, Ontario. http://ec.gc.ca/indicateurs-indicators/19374730-E0FE-47AA-B8E1-6C846B2CFA3E/ManagingPulpandPaperEffluentQualityinCanada_en.pdf. Accessed 20 Mar 2016
FAO (2002, 2007 and 2014) Yearbook of forest products, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome. http://www.fao.org/forestry/statistics/80570/en/. Accessed 1 Dec 2017
Greenstone M, List JA, Syverson C (2012) The effects of environmental regulation on the competitiveness of US Manufacturing. In: NBER Working Paper, No. 18392, 2012. https://www.nber.org/papers/w18392. Accessed 12 Jan 2016
Hailu A (2003) Pollution abatement and productivity performance of regional Canadian pulp and paper industries. J Forest Econ 9(1):5–25
Levinson A (2009) Technology, international trade, and pollution from US manufacturing. Am Econ Rev 99(5):2177–2192
Levinson A (2015) A Direct estimate of the technique effect: changes in the pollution intensity of US manufacturing, 1990–2008. J Assoc Env Res Econ 2(1):43–56
Natural Resources Canada (2016) The State of Canada’s Forests: Annual Report 2014, Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada. http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/pubwarehouse/pdfs/35713.pdf. Accessed 18 Apr 2016
Paillé G (2012) Histoire forestière du Canada. Les Publications du Québec, Québec
Shapiro JS, Walker R (2018) Why is pollution from US manufacturing declining? The roles of environmental regulation, productivity, and trade. Am Econ Rev 108(12):3814–54
Sinclair WF (1991) Controlling effluent discharges from Canadian pulp and paper manufacturers. Can Public Policy 17(1):86–105
Statistics Canada (2016) CANSIM Table 129-0003: sales of natural gas, monthly, CANSIM (database). http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26?lang=eng&id=1290003. Accessed 18 Feb 2016
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
We gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). We thank the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) for providing access to data on Canadian pulp and paper mills and also for the hospitality at their office. We would also like to thank the participants of Economics Empirical Lunch Seminar (1 March, 2016) at the University of Ottawa and the 56th Annual Meeting of SCSE, Quebec (May 11–13, 2016), for helpful comments and suggestions. We remain solely responsible for data preparation and for the views expressed in this paper.
About this article
Cite this article
Bernard, JT., Hussain, J. & Sinha, M.M. Survival of the cleanest? Evidence from a plant-level analysis of pollutant emissions in Canadian pulp and paper industry, 2005–2013. Environ Econ Policy Stud 22, 109–126 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10018-019-00254-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10018-019-00254-6
Keywords
- Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD)
- Total suspended solids (TSS)
- Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
- Technique effect
- Pulp and paper industry