What we can do for a sustainable society: a telephone directory case study

Abstract

The environmental impact of a Japanese telephone directory was studied using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method. Most telephone directories are published, delivered and collected by the telephone company; this makes their life cycle unlike that of other magazines. We analyzed several environmental burdens, such as carbon dioxide (CO/sub 2/) emission and nitrogen oxide (NO/sub x/) emission, and evaluated several environmental effects. Most of the environmental burdens were caused during the paper production process.