Siting of paper mills: Is a pristine environment an industrial resource?

Industry should be sited at locations where its environmental load does the least damage. We examined the particular case of paper production at eight paper mills in relative pristine environments in Norway and calculated resource use, emissions, and environmental effects, the last theme in terms of 12 end point criteria. Compared to a scenario corresponding to fictitious mills sited in densely populated industrial regions in West-Central Europe we obtained end point damages ranging from 3% to 23% of these "worst-case" damages for 9 of the 12 end point attributes. For three of the end points there we re no clear differences. Reasons for the smaller damages in the Norwegian environment were higher dilution and self-cleaning capacity of air and water recipients,lower background concentrations of pollutants, and lower concentrations of natural and cultural resources. When we applied low-end and average "unit pollutant prices" for a selection of the paper industry's resource uses and pollutant emissions, the damage costs were 7-17% of the paper industry's contribution to the gross domestic product. However, even if there are advantages in terms of reduced damages by locating industry to pristine environments, the actual siting decision also depends on consistent and durable economic and political value judgments.