Business and Society 2.0

People think paper making is a great energy consumer. In fact it was some years ago, but technology has played is role, things changes but the idea stays the same. Looking more closely, we will see some interesting facts and figures about paper making and the usage of energy. On average it takes 500 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity to produce 200kg of paper, the average amount of paper that each of us consume each year. "The European pulp and paper industry is strongly in favour of renewable energy and has declared an intent that commits the industry to increase the share of biomass-based energy in its total primary energy consumption from 49% in 2001 to 56% in 2010"(1). Does 500 kilowatt-hours sound a lot? Well, let´s look to other energy consumption of our day to day life. 500 kWh is equivalent to: • Powering one computer continuously for five months • Burning a 60w light bulb continuously for one year • The energy consumed by a typical household leaving its electronic e

A report from the Kelsey Group, mentions the following case of success: Profiles of Success - Local News Goes Multiplatform in Las Vegas, by Rob Curley, President and Executive Editor, Greenspun Media and Chris Jennewein, Senior VP and Publisher, Greenspun Media. The Opportunity In Las Vegas, Greenspun Media owns a local newspaper, radio station, cable news outlet, local alternative weekly, weekly newspapers and several tourism-related publications. The objective was to determine how to drive synergy across these key properties and position Greenspun for the future. The Solution The solution was to develop an "online first" approach, with all new online staff and new Web sites. "What attracted us to Greenspun was that we could change the rules," said Greenspun Publisher Chris Jennewein. Since Greenspun's Las Vegas Sun was the No. 2 newspaper in town, "we had no core print business to support and defend." Moreover, Greenspun's TV properties can supp

In spite of some signals on print jobs growth, like the "Economist, which is growing in circulation by an average of 5.6%" (1), in general, according to the study Digital Printing Directions, printing workload is decreasing and in 2020 is expecteed to be 70% of 1995 volumes (2). This Digital Printing Direction study, from Frank Romano, found there is a trend for shorter runs and faster turnaround times. 45% of jobs are short run and time sensitive while 19% are long runs and not time sensitive. In 2000 the number of print jobs produced in a week was 18% and is expected to decrease to 13% by 2020, while the number of jobs produced in a day or less was 15% in 2000 and is expected to reach 20% by 2020. Frank Romano´s study shows also that in 2000, offset printing technology was 80% of the printing revenue while digital printing only accounted for 5%. In 2020 this will turn to less than 30% and digital printing to growth up to 40%. The trend is also to move from one colour, to fu

Paper Industry is changing towards a "new generation" of paper grades, pulp and paper manufacturing technologies. It is a fact, the trend of paper consumption in the world is going down. Print volumes went down since 1995 almost 20%, by the use of Internet and other digital media. Between 1995 and 2020 the worldwide print volumes are expected to decrease by about 30% (1). This general trend does not tell what is going in the industry and what are the expectations for the future. Newspaper Publishers have probably experienced the competitiveness of the media industry and the change of consumer habits using much more information available online. However, some publishers presented strong operations like Prisa Group, the owners of El País, the spanish newspaper that has increased circulation the last years. According to Pedro Garcia Guillén, General Manager of El País (2), "the circulation and number of readers has grown last years, in spite of competition from newspapers a