Coping Strategies — Rising Cost Of Commodities

“Although the absolute pricing level of paper hasn’t been at historic lows,” notes Greg Gibson, vice president of commercial print and imaging papers at International Paper, “margins have declined significantly because input costs—energy, chemicals and wood—have risen so dramatically. And that caused a shakeout in the paper industry, leading, in the third and fourth quarter of 2005 and into 2006, to an unprecedented amount of capacity being permanently shut down.”