Paper Clips

Packaging Corporation of America CEO Mark Kowlzan detailed the impact of investments over the last decade, where energy projects are set to occur, and his optimism for nearshoring. Packaging Corporation of America’s $5.2 billion worth of investments in its mills and box plants over the last decade — at a time when it says many competitors didn’t commit to such investments — is paying off now, said CEO Mark Kowlzan on Feb. 26 during the Bank of America Securities 2026 Global Agriculture and Materials Conference. “The industry hasn’t recapitalized at the rates that we have,” he said. Kowlzan said he predicted in 2018 that “if you were not prepared to take care of your own technical and engineering needs, your own capital spending needs, you would be out of business probably in 20 years,” he said. “That was, say, eight years ago. And look what’s happening to the industry.”

Holiday shopping and events such as Prime Day and Black Friday made up for lackluster spring and summer sales performance at retail, moving overall retail sales up by nearly 4%, according to a 2025 Recap Report from Colliers Retail Market Intelligence. Volume growth, however, softened meaningfully (often below 1%) due to increasingly cautious consumer behavior. Shopper reliance on promotions, credit card usage, and value channels “underscored a consumer who remained active — yet highly selective,” read the report. Consumers were guarding their pocketbooks last year. Foot traffic was highest at discount and dollars stores, with a 5% year-over-year rise to nearly 320 million visits.

Despite better-than-expected revenue, CEO Marvin Ellison said “consumers are reluctant to make significant investments in their homes” right now. Poor consumer outlook, elevated mortgage rates and low housing turnover continue…

Amazon is expanding its infrastructure to support artificial intelligence and cloud technologies in northwest Louisiana. The online giant plans to invest $12 billion to build what it calls state-of-the-art data center…

Savvas Learning Company, a next-generation K-12 learning solutions leader, is excited to announce that myView Literacy © 2025, the newest edition of its leading K-5 core English Language Arts (ELA) program, has won the Tech & Learning Best of 2025 Award. The Best of 2025 Awards celebrate educational technology that has excelled in supporting teachers, students, and educators. Tech & Learning selected myView Literacy as a winner in the primary education category of the most impactful products contributing to the education sector in 2025.

UPM, a global leader in sustainable material solutions, has achieved an important milestone in the startup of production of commercial, wood-based chemicals in its Leuna biorefinery in Germany. The refinery, which is the largest industrial-scale investment in biochemicals in Europe, has started the production and commercialization of industrial sugars. After successfully starting up the hydrothermal breakdown of wood on industrial scale earlier this year, the biorefinery has now reached stable operation in separating lignin and sugars. This critical process step is a prerequisite for the conversion of sugars to renewable glycols and lignin to renewable functional fillers. “Leuna is significant proof of UPM’s commitment to scaling up innovative, high-performance bio-based material solutions.

UPM Communication Papers is launching a new climate action roadmap, marking a significant milestone in accelerating its climate actions. The initiative reinforces its long-standing commitment to sustainability and further supports its customers in achieving their climate targets. The roadmap builds on UPM Communication Papers’ existing climate goals and commitments setting out concrete actions to further reduce carbon emissions across the paper value chain. A key element of the roadmap is a clearly defined climate target. By 2030, fossil CO2 emissions from UPM Communication Papers’ own operations and externally sourced energy at European sites will be reduced to ≤100kg per tonne of paper on average, a reduction of more than 70% compared to the baseline year 2023.

1959–2025 MIDLAND is deeply saddened to announce the passing of Ralph DeLetto, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and co-owner of the company. “Ralph was an extraordinary leader and a…

If you watched 60 Minutes Sunday, you saw thieves use frighteningly advanced cyber tactics to steal two truckloads carrying $1 million worth of Guy Fieri and Sammy Hagar’s tequila without ever pulling a gun. More than 24,000 bottles of the celebrity duo’s Santo Spirits tequila—nearly four years in the making—never reached their Pennsylvania destination. After leaving Laredo, Texas, two legitimate drivers were duped by thieves posing as company officials into rerouting the load to a fake Los Angeles warehouse. After their convincing impersonation, the criminals also spoofed the trucks’ GPS, ensuring the seven-figure shipment disappeared without a trace. While it made for gripping television, it highlights a much larger, more alarming issue. Cargo theft has metastasized into an organized, global enterprise that now costs the U.S. trucking industry $7 billion per year. That’s $19 million every single day.

If you’re still segmenting lists by age, gender, and ZIP code alone, you’re paying premium CPMs to address the wrong people. In fact, a recent analysis found that nearly four in…

Wiley announces a new collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to launch a generative AI agent for scientific literature search on AWS. The first of its kind from a publisher on AWS, the AI agent will be unveiled at the 7th annual AWS Life Sciences Symposium in New York City on May 6. The AI agent will demonstrate how researchers can conduct comprehensive full-text scientific literature search across Wiley’s extensive journal content, moving beyond traditional abstract-only searches to access detailed content within main sections like methods and results. The new Wiley literature search agent is available as part of an open source toolkit for healthcare and life sciences agents that has been assembled by AWS. The toolkit offers a catalog of starter agents and an orchestration framework for organizations to build and customize their agentic systems, supporting use cases from biomarker discovery to clinical trial protocol generation. The new AI agent currently includes AI searchable access to articles under the creative commons license, such as Cancer Medicine,delivering reliable and cited insights in minutes rather than the current hours- to days-long manual process of discovering and perusing dozens of articles for relevant information. “Our collaboration with AWS demonstrates how researchers can access and leverage scientific literature to power more effective discovery across the life sciences sector,” said Josh Jarrett, SVP and GM of AI Growth for Wiley.

Through this combination, Amcor enhances its position as a global leader in consumer and healthcare packaging solutions with the unique material science and innovation capabilities required to revolutionize product development and meet customers’ and consumers’ sustainability aspirations. With multiple new growth opportunities and $650 million of identified synergies, Amcor is well placed to deliver significant near- and long-term value for customers and shareholders. Amcor CEO Peter Konieczny commented, “This combination delivers on our strategy to become a stronger company with a broader, more complete offering for customers and enhanced positions in attractive categories. Our focus now turns to delivering on synergies and growth opportunities, including leveraging our extensive global footprint and enhanced innovation and R&D capabilities, while also further refining our portfolio. The outstanding work our teams have completed over the past several months enables Amcor to enter fiscal 2026 in a better position than we anticipated, with a synergy run rate that will start strong and build quickly through the year. We are now uniquely positioned to deliver more consistent growth, further improve margins and drive compelling near- and long-term value for shareholders.”

This Earth Day, we’re proud to launch Domtar Connects — a companywide framework that brings together contributions and employee-led community service to strengthen the places where we live and work. Inspired by the legacy of the EarthChoice Ambassador (ECA) Program and countless employee-led grassroots initiatives, Domtar Connects is designed to engage employees, align with our corporate values and maximize our impact. The program complements owner Jackson Wijaya’s commitment to philanthropy. Domtar Connects focuses on causes that reflect both who we are and what we make. Guided by our Community Investment Policy and grounded in our vision, mission and values, our contributions center around three key areas. *Education and Literacy: Domtar produces paper for books and learning materials, helping to foster education and literacy. *Humanitarian Needs: Our products support essential services and rebuilding efforts in times of crisis or natural disasters. *Sustainability and Environmental Stewardship: Our business is rooted in forest products, and we prioritize sustainability in our operations and in the communities we serve.

“As one of the largest independent Canadian news media organizations, our strength has always been rooted in our deep connection to communities across the country,” said Andrew MacLeod, Postmedia President and Chief Executive Officer. “Our connection is strengthened by our new editorial mission, which is designed to be a connecting force – thoughtful, uplifting, and bringing Canadians together through informed, meaningful journalism.” “The results from our second quarter demonstrate the success of our commitment to Canadian communities,” said MacLeod. “With positive momentum in both our advertising and circulation divisions, our investment into Atlantic Canada, through our Saltwire acquisition, has played a pivotal role in achieving these results. As we continue to face an immensely challenging media environment, our dedication to local communities will continue to guide the work we do.” Revenue for the quarter was $110.8 million as compared to $97.3 million in the same period in the prior year, representing an increase of $13.5 million (13.9%). The revenue increase was primarily due to increases in advertising revenue of $6.9 million (16.0%), circulation revenue of $2.2 million (6.6%) and other revenue of $4.8 million (67.4%), partially offset by decreases in parcel revenue of $0.4 million (2.9%). Excluding the impact of the Saltwire asset acquisition, advertising revenue for the quarter increased by 6.0% and other revenue for the quarter increased by 47.7%. Total operating expenses excluding depreciation, amortization and restructuring decreased $1.1 million, or 1.1%, for the quarter ended February 28, 2025, relative to the same period in the prior year.

Our Clermont Mill, a nearly century-old institution in Quebec’s Charlevoix region, has long been a pillar of the local community. The mill is home to a paper machine that produces 221,000 metric tons of newsprint a year from thermomechanical pulp. Faced with the high energy demands of paper production, the mill rose to the challenge with an innovative energy recovery project. Fully aware of the opportunities to optimize steam consumption, the team at the Clermont Mill partnered with Hydro-Québec to develop an ambitious energy recovery project. Hydro-Québec provided CA$3 million of financial assistance to help the mill reduce its steam consumption by capturing and reusing waste heat. The project involved installing heat exchangers and two water-to-water heat pumps, directly integrated into the paper production process — a first for Quebec’s pulp and paper industry. The initiative has yielded significant results, including an annual savings of CA$800,000 and a 15-million-kWh reduction in energy consumption. To better illustrate the impact, the energy saved could power 880 houses, a statistic that highlights the project’s economic and environmental benefits.

Robert P. Mundy, PCA’s Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will step down as CFO on May 1, 2025 and remain employed by PCA in an advisory role through his planned retirement date of March 1, 2026. Bob has served as PCA’s CFO since 2015. Kent A. Pflederer, PCA’s General Counsel since he joined PCA in 2007, will become PCA’s Executive Vice President and CFO on May 1, 2025. Thomas A. Hassfurther, PCA’s Executive Vice President, Corrugated Products has been named President of PCA. Tom will continue to report to Mark W. Kowlzan, Chairman and CEO, and will oversee PCA’s strategic growth efforts in addition to leading the corrugated products business. Tom has led PCA’s corrugated products business since 2009 and joined PCA in 1977. D. Ray Shirley, PCA’s Senior Vice President, Corporate Engineering and Process Technology since 2019, has been named Executive Vice President, Corrugated Products. Ray will report to Tom Hassfurther and assume day-to-day management of the corrugated products business. Ray has worked for PCA since 1996 in various business and operational roles across PCA’s containerboard and corrugated products system. Ray will continue to oversee all aspects of PCA’s engineering and technology organization. Commenting on these changes, Mr. Kowlzan said: “Bob has been instrumental to PCA’s growth and success over the last ten years. As a 45-year industry veteran, he brought considerable operational and strategic expertise to complement his leadership of our finance function. I am very pleased that he will remain with PCA to assist in the transition of the CFO role to Kent.

The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) released its Q1 2024 Containerboard Quarterly report. According to the report, total containerboard production in Q1 increased 7% compared to Q1 2023. U.S. operating rates for all major grades of conatainerboard in Q1 2024, except Semichemical Medium, increased compared to Q4 2023 while total production was down 0.7% (Q1 had 1 less day than Q4). Unbleached Kraft Liner production for export surged more than 41% over its year-ago levels. The Q1 2024 export total was higher than any quarter in 2023. Despite the significant increase in exports, domestic new supply was up 3.7% from Q1 2023 due to the increase in domestic production, as well as a 12.6% increase in imports of containerboard. New supply declined slightly from Q4. Mill inventories ended the quarter at 429,400 short tons, lower than at the end of 2023, but higher than any other month last year.

Key highlights of the 2022 CSR Report include: *EcoVadis Gold Rating: Monadnock received EcoVadis gold rating, placing it in the top eight percent of the 90,000+ companies ranked by EcoV Since earning a silver rating in the 2015 assessment, the company has achieved a 30% improvement in performance level. *Sustainable Resource Management: In 2022, Monadnock enabled its customers to avoid the consumption of 42,400,000 pounds of wood. The company also saw a 58% increase in post-consumer waste (PCW) usage since 2021. *Waste Reduction: Trash to landfill was reduced by 11% over 2021 with an excellent diversion rate of 98.6%. For context, a Zero Waste company is often defined by a minimum 90% diversion rate. *Innovative Collaborations: Monadnock collaborated with a global brand to pioneer a paper-based, 100% post-consumer waste recycled bag closure.

Dotdash Meredith posted a 15% decline in Q2 2023 revenue YoY to $414 million. But a $17.8 million operating loss reflected a 35% improvement over the prior year. Digital revenue fell by 10% YoY to $212 million. Print declined by 21% to $206.8 million, driven by a circulation falloffs for some publications. “Stability in traffic helped, as did passing the toughest of last year’s advertising comparables,” says Joey Levin, CEO of parent IAC. Levin continues, “While we can’t count on any aggregate recovery in the ad market, we do expect Dotdash Meredith to benefit from D/Cipher adoption, Performance Marketing strength, and more ad performance optimization on the former Meredith sites.”