The event, titled ‘Understanding the key risks in the fibre supply chain’, attracted delegates from paper manufacturers, paper buyers, merchants, printers, certification bodies, trade associations and NGOs.

There was a wide recognition of the contribution that major paper buyers have made towards achieving sustainability by setting environmentally responsible corporate policies, as well as an acknowledgement that retailers want to be seen to be ‘doing good’. The attendees discussed the need for the sectors within the broader paper industry to engage with these key decision makers as their policies impact it more than any other factor.

Threat to the industry
A worrying trend has been the dramatic reduction in new forestry areas coming under FSC and PEFC certification. As demand for certified fibre outstrips supply, this is becoming a growing threat to the industry and one that I don’t think has been properly communicated yet.

It was generally acknowledged that a reliance on fibre certification as the only solution to market demands for sustainability, is not good for the industry. The role of recycled content as part of the response was seen as important, but suffers from consumers’ poor understanding of the inherent limits of the recycled market.

Most of the group agreed that environmental information provided by paper suppliers and required by buyers is indeed out of alignment, with the size of the gap varying from company to company. Paper companies should be concerned. We know that many of them go to a lot of effort to ensure that they are addressing the right issues; indeed, if you asked these manufacturers, they would say that they believe they are doing enough. So why is this not reflected in their customers’ feedback?

The discussion identified that the greatest focus on information exchange is when dealing business-to-business, where, comparatively, the alignment is closer than when dealing directly with the consumer. This raised the question of where most influence lies: is it with consumers, who put pressure on publishers and printers, or is it with the big buyers choosing to act responsibly?

We also looked at the sustainability of the forestry industry and concluded that much could be done to improve performance. As an industry it has a tendancy to be internally focused and slow to respond; it gives out mixed messages and suffers from a lack of collaboration.

The underlying view of the group was that no single organisation is currently set up to provide the solution to all of the issues that had been discussed during the event.

The main thing that I took away was that the industry needs to collaborate and coordinate globally with other relevant sectors. Negative attention on any aspect of global forestry, in which the paper industry plays a relatively small part, will continue to undermine recognition of good practice. The industries represented in our roundtable are frustrated by the slow progress and poor recognition of what has been achieved to date. They recognise that greater international collaboration is needed to enable print and paper companies to manage their perceived sustainability problems. 

We have talked in these pages before about the work of industry bodies such as Two Sides, but are we missing the bigger picture? What sense is there in having so many fragmented regional associations in what is increasingly a global industry? I was talking to a contact in the timber trade who expressed the same opinion: why don’t we work closer together? A globalised industry needs a global response.

Mark Line is the executive chairman of Two Tomorrows, www.twotomorrows.com