Hahnemühle paper-manufacturing facts

The main resources necessary for the paper production are water, pulps – and a lot of energy. Here, we inform you on the way we deal with these valuable resources. Please find more detailed information on the fascinating material paper and the technical terms in our ‘General Information about paper A-Z’ . 

Water

We use pure spring water from the Solling in the manufacturing of finest papers. Four centuries ago, the availability of the water was the most important reason for the location of a paper mill. To this day, it is accredited as drinking-water quality. 

The major part of our water is cumulated in our production cycle to be used again. Our sewage isn’t polluted with contaminants and is returned to the natural water cycle. As resident of a nature protection area according to the European Flora Fauna Habitat Directive (FFH area), we meet the highest demands regarding the environmental sustainability of our production process.

A survey of the ‘Papiertechnischen Stiftung München’, Paper Technology Foundation Munich, confirms our responsible and – first of all – economical and considerate stewardship of both fresh water and sewage. 

Pulps

Our product portfolio comprises more than 500 different artist papers, filter papers and technical papers for industrial and medical purposes. To guarantee the high pureness of our papers, using waste paper for our production is impossible. 

We use pulps from 20 different deciduous-tree and conifer species and attach great importance to the use of sustainable forestry. The major part of our suppliers all over the world is certificated – for instance according to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) directives.

Further raw materials are linters and rags respectively, very soft and non-aging fibres of the cotton plant’s seed vessel. We use six different kinds of these fibres.

The basic materials for our ‘green’ papers are quickly renewable bamboo fibres or bagasse pulp, a waste material of the sugar-cane converting that would be burned, otherwise. Furthermore, we assure ourselves that the cultivation areas for these natural resources haven’t been created at the expense of tropical forests.

certificate bamboo      certificate bagasse       

Electricity

The manufacturing of paper is an energy-intensive process and electric energy is our main energy source. Since 1st January, 2009, we meet our demands by relying on the energy supplier ‘LichtBlick’ .

The power fed into the public power-supply system by LichtBlick solely is based on renewable energy sources. Their electric energy is supplied neither by atomic nor by coal, gas or oil power plants.

So, we obviate CO2 emissions of more than 3,000 tons per year . A figure that fills us with pride and that approximately corresponds with our annual paper production.

Recycling

If possible, clippings and rests resulting from our production are directly returned to the production cycle. And in the case that doing so proves to be impossible we cumulate the paper off-cuts and pass them down to other fabricators. So, there is virtually no production waste at all. 

And when it comes to our packages we solely use potential recyclables.