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.

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.

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.