Futures 88 (2017) 1 – 14
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Futures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/futures
The European pulp and paper industry in transition to a bio-economy: A Delphi study Anne Toppinen a , Satu Pätäri b, *, Anni Tuppura b , Ari Jantunen b a Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 27, 00014 Helsingin Yliopisto, Finland b School of Business and Management, Lappeenranta University of Technology, P.O. Box 20, 53851 Lappeenranta, Finland
ARTICLE INFO
A B S T R A C T
Article history: Received 20 June 2016 Received in revised form 29 December 2016 Accepted 28 February 2017 Available online 2 March 2017
The current challenge facing the European pulp and paper industry is how to materialize the transformation to a bio-economy, as well as to realize the necessary new green innovations. The risks, costs and constraints of doing business will increase, thereby further intensifying competition, but at the same time new business opportunities will open up. This study adopts a three-round dissensus-based Delphi approach in order to explore our key research question of how the pulp and paper industry may change strategically, and what is the potential for value creation in the year 2030. According to our expert panel, the main drivers of competitiveness in 2030 will include energy and material ef fi ciency, sustainability, as well as new innovations in products to serve customer needs better. According to the projected 2030 scenario, the pulp and paper industry will produce more diversi fi ed products, focus on higher value-added, and aim at consumer segments with higher environmental awareness. On average, 40 percent of the turnover will according to the panel come from genuinely new products. Strategic cross-sectorial partnerships will have a key role in making this big leap, while simultaneously acknowledging the changing needs of sustainability-conscious customers and other stakeholders. © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Keywords: Pulp and paper industry Bio-economy Delphi study Future Business opportunities Industry structure
1. Introduction
The pulp and paper industry (PPI) has traditionally been one of the most environmentally sensitive sectors due to its heavy dependence on water, its use of energy, and the vitality of forest ecosystems as a source of wood fi ber. Taking a historical perspective, Ojala, Lamberg, Ahola, and Melander (2007) concluded that only a moderate degree of competition existed in the global forest industry up until the end of the 1990s on account of constantly growing markets, a low degree of internationalization in the leading fi rms, and an emphasis on business-to-business products associated with long-term buyer-supplier contracts. However, things have changed dramatically since then. The strategic orientation of the forest industry in general has evolved in the course of time through four distinct stages: forestry orientation, production orientation, market orientation, and sustainability orientation ( [65_TD$DIFF] Toppinen, Wan, & Lähtinen, 2013, Chap 17). In a recent work, Kozak (2013, Chap 18) describes the global landscape of the forest industrial sector as eclipsed by large, multinational
* Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: anne.toppinen@helsinki. fi (A. Toppinen), satu.patari@lut. fi (S. Pätäri), anni.tuppura@lut. fi (A. Tuppura), ari.jantunen@lut. fi (A. Jantunen). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2017.02.002 0016-3287/© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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