In order to build a carbon-neutral society, it is necessary to create a market where decarbonized and low-carbon products are selected, and visualization of CO₂ emissions per product through carbon footprint of products （CFP） is considered essential as a foundation for such a market. In 2023, the Japanese government released the cross-industry CFP guidelines for individual businesses to calculate their CFP, and launched a project to provide support to organizations that formulate product-specific calculation rules based on these guidelines.

As the Ministry of the Environment is considering the introduction of CFP calculation as a criterion for the Green Purchasing Law, Japan Paper Association decided to participate in the above‒mentioned support project and formulate comparable CFP calculation rules for copy paper and printing paper among the paper products compliant with the Law.

The CFP calculation rules for paper and paperboard products were established by Japan Paper Association in 2010, and were reviewed in line with the government’s CFP guidelines. Basically, we followed the 2010 CFP calculation rules, but reviewed the contents to make the rules comparable, and added new items such as biomass‒derived carbon, mass balance, etc. We report the outline of the review.