Demand
What will the demand for paper and paperboard be in the year 2070?
Group 11 came up with five main areas for potential demand problems in the paper and paperboard industry.
-
Office Paper vs Technology
-
Paperback books vs eBooks
-
Interactive advertising vs traditional printed form.
-
Paperboard and packaging.
-
Hygiene uses of paper
Advertising:
The traditional printed form of advertising in New Zealand, newspapers and “Junk mail” has had a decreasing trend in revenue since 2003 (ASA, 2015) and this is predicted to continue through till 2018 (ASA, 2015). According to advertising standards authority, online advertising has been increasingly taking over the market, with newspapers and other printed media on a downward trend. It could be expected in the year 2070 that printed media would have a small part of the paper production industry. See fig 1
Paperback books vs eBooks
In the year 2070 the needs of paperback books will have likely changed the current price of eBooks is conciderably cheeper than a printed vesion and instantly avalible with internet accesss. This has had a huge impact on printed book sales and the printing industry (Pwc, 2015). It could be expected that the use of tablets and eBooks will increase, phasing out the need of printed books and newspaper (PWC, 2015). As people become more used to using tablets for reading it could be expected that the use of paperback books would have a declineing trend. See fig 2
Paperboard and packaging
Paperboard and packaging paper has had the largest growth in Industry from 1997 – 2014 mostly due to Chinas growing economy and need for packaging of products for export (Barr, 2015). Demand for Paper packaging is predicted to increase between years 2015 – 2020 while India is thought to follow the same path as China. Paper packaging could also be a more sustainable solution as petroleum based plastic become scarce. It would be probable that paper packaging would be a large part of the paper industry in the year 2070.
Office Paper vs Technology
With the modern age becoming more reliant on tablets and other smart technologies, it could be expected that this would have some impact on the paper industry in the year 2070. A recent study at the University of Calgary into Tablet use in the office found that Tablets are resembling regular pen and paper tools, they also found that tablets are becoming more accepted in corporate meetings and other business presentations (Haber, 2014). Although paper is not expected to disappear completely from the office as formal documents such as contracts and diplomas are still printed on paper, this is not thought to change in the foreseeable future (Henricks, 2014).
Hygiene uses of paper
Uses for paper in personal hygienic products currently include tissues, baby diapers and feminine hygiene products. This market is particularly strong at present as third world countries become westernised and a study in the USA showed that only 6.1 percent of Americans would use less hygiene products in next 5 – 10 years if there was a shortage (Henricks, 2012).
Conclusion:
It is foreseeable that the paper industry will continue to head away from Newspapers and other printed media, smart technology will only become more advanced and the paper industry cannot compete in this field in both cost and time. It is probable that the main industry for paper will be packaging as the world becomes more globalised and paper products are a more sustainable solution than petroleum based packaging. Hygiene products could also make up a large percent of the paper industry as this is a rapidly increasing industry with good foreseeable growth to the year 2020.