Environmental Paper Network released the Environmental Paper Network released the The State of the Global Paper Industry, a civil society review of the social and environmental performance of the paper industry. The 2018 report’s assessment is structured according to the goals of the EPN’s Global Paper Vision informing on trends in consumption, recycled content, social responsibility, responsible virgin fibre sourcing, greenhouse gas emissions, clean production and transparency. 

Key findings include:

• paper consumption is at unsustainable levels and globally it is steadily increasing, particularly in Asia, while remaining at unequal levels of access in some parts of the world, particularly Africa.
• increasing production in response to new market demand is driving development of new virgin-fibre pulp mills, especially in Asia, Africa and South America. A new live online map is revealed as a resource to help track the expansion and the proximity of mills to Intact Forest Landscapes.
  expansion is resulting in numerous social conflicts in many nations including Brazil, Indonesia, Canada, India, Chile and Mozambique.
• the industry has substantial climate change impacts and critical opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions through better land management and fibre choices need to be seized, urgently.
• corporate social responsibility commitments and purchasing policies have continued to proliferate and have helped to drive some specific social and environmental improvements ‘on-the-ground,’ but execution, transparency and progress on many voluntary commitments is lagging.
• there are significant gaps in data availability globally, between regions, and across topics, and challenges in comparing data due to lack of standardisation.