Consultant Stephen Harrod of Wildhorn Industrial, Great Milton, United Kingdom, optimistically entitled his keynote presentation at the 2009 European Paper Recycling Conference, “Key Drivers in Growth in Paper and Board Production.”
Within the presentation, however, Harrod identified trends and potential trends some of which offer hope for increased markets while others call into question the growth limits of certain types of paper.
In terms of the overall global economy—and particularly in the economies of the European Union and North America—Harrod is seeing a fairly quick rebound from what he termed “the abyss” of negative growth experienced in those two places in the first half of 2009.
Regarding the global economy and its rebound, however, Harrod was quick to note that “China and India rule.”
In the next several years, Harrod suggested a new acronym to replace BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) as the economies with the fastest GDP growth: ChIMP, for China, India, Mexico and Poland. The forecasts from which he drew information, however, still had Brazil and Russia placing fifth and sixth as growing national economies.
In terms of future markets for paper and recovered fibre, the overall growth of these national economies presents some of the brightest news. Beyond that, however, are some trends that may work against the overall industry:
• Lightweighting in packaging, which can cause the use of thinner paper and board or substitutes for board;
• The establishment of a “carbon-based economy” that puts pressure on manufacturers to use less paper packaging;
• Concerning the growth of Internet-based shopping, Herrod said it is still difficult to gauge whether this form of distribution offers a net gain or loss for paper and board makers. On the plus side, each individual purchase is packaged. On the downside, a reduction in brick-and-mortar retailers means less need for larger shipping cartons, in-store signs and point-of-purchase displays;
• Office environments that are increasingly “paperless” could spell an overcapacity in printing and writing paper mill capacity.
In the short term, Harrod says he sees some good news emerging for paper recyclers in 2010, both in terms of recovered fibre being embraced as part of a sustainable material loop and because the growing economies of the ChIMP nations are producing larger disposable incomes among people there to help fuel overall global economy.
The 2009 European Paper Recycling Conference was held Nov. 16-17 at the Hotel Bloom in Brussels.