Environmental Gains: Data-driven solutions, innovation, and collaboration are papermakers’ new continuous-improvement tools in mitigating global climate change

More than 140 representatives from the catalog and magazine publishing industries, paper and forest products companies, environmental groups, government, and other key stakeholders gathered in Bar Harbor, ME, in June to discuss the important role paper producers and their customers are playing in efforts to help mitigate global climate change.

“Climate change has been called one of the defining issues of our time,” says GAA president and CEO Bill Martin. “This second in a series of three GAA annual conferences on the environment was designed specifically to share the paper industry’s most recent climate change-related research and mitigation initiatives.”

Craig Liska, vice president for sustainability at Verso Paper Corp., this year’s primary GAA conference sponsor, opened the conference by noting that the paper industry and its customers are taking a leadership role in the fight against global climate change.

“By leading the charge for sustainable forestry, improved manufacturing and energy efficiency, increased use of renewable biofuels, and transportation optimization, the organizations represented at this meeting are stepping up with real-world solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating climate change,” Liska said.

Presentations at the conference focused primarily on these key areas.