Visions for pulp and paper industry

By Pekka Niku

We are living in turbulent times. The industry needs visions and strategic scenarios on how to navigate into the uncertain future. Uncertainties can be turned into opportunities. The key topics discussed in this book are: what are the mega trends, specific trends and weak signals affecting the global pulp and paper industry? How is the operating environment changing? What is happening to the plastic to paper trend? What are the opportunities and risks of the future? The book is based on Pekka Niku's over 40 years' practical experience as a forest industry consultant. Time span of the visions is up to 2035, and beyond.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Release date: Nov 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9789528080718

Pekka Niku

Pekka Niku has over 40 years' experience as a forest industry consultant.

Book preview

Megatrends and weak signals

Analysis of the megatrends and driving forces is the basis for preparing visions and strategic scenarios of the future. A megatrend is a general direction of the development in the operating environment. These trends normally take place at the global level, but not necessarily at the same time everywhere. In addition to megatrends one should also look at the weak signals and more specific trends under the megatrends - undercurrents. Some of the main megatrends and specific trends affecting pulp and paper industry include:

Growth of internet, electronic media and on-line shopping

Aging population, slowing population growth

Trend to single households

Urbanization

Ban on plastics

Specialty pulps

Bio products

Non wood pulping – bamboo, straw, etc.

Textile fibres

Recycling and circular economy

Environmental issues, sustainability, CO2 reduction

Production technology

AI (Artificial Intellingence)

Light weighting

Industry 4.0 and 5.0

Production and printing on demand

Digital printing

3D printing

Covid-19 and other pandemia

Legislation

Geopolitical tensions and trade restriction

Changes in global weather

Industry restructuring and consolidation

Innovations

Increasing space activity

Evaluation of all these trends means an analysis of massive amounts of data and number crunching. I have tried to avoid presenting such a data dump in this book, and instead jumped directly into the conclusions and recommendations.

Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, had a particular approach when faced with making a quick decision. He called it the 40/70 rule. He would strive to not make decision with less than 40% of the information needed, then ultimately make the decision when he had at most, 70% of the information.

I have noted the same phenomena in consumer research. The results of preliminary surveys with small, carefully selected focus groups often lead to the same results as large consumer surveys, although there is no firm statistical support for this.

Internet and electronic media

Internet usage started to increase in the 1990s. In Finland the first www-pages were opened in 1993. In 2022 the number of internet users in the world is estimated to be close to 5 billion. About 60 % of world population have access to internet. Most of the internet users (4,7 billion) use also social media. English is an official language of internet, which gives English speaking countries, like India, an enormous advantage.

Compared with print media, and other analog technologies, digital media are easy to copy, store, share and modify. This quality of digital media has led to significant changes in many industries, especially journalism, publishing, education and entertainment. From the publisher’s point of view the digital editions of newspapesr, magazines or books bring huge savings in production costs. The following chart illustrates the development of US newspaper circulation.

These trends will continue to have big impacts on world paper demand:

Graphical grades will continue to suffer

Packaging grades will benefit from the increasing on line shopping

Tissue and diapers are not much affected by the electronic media

These trends are discussed in more detail later in the book.

Single-person households

In the US, the share of adults who live alone doubled over the last 50 years.

Historical records show that this ‘rise of living alone’ started in earlyindustrialized countries over a century ago, accelerating around 1950. In the Nordic countries, single-person households were rare a century ago, but today they account for nearly half of all households. In some cities they are already the majority.

Single-person households have become increasingly common in many countries across the world, especially in Asia (see chart below).

This trend has many implications to the packaging industry:

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