COVID-19 leads to changes in paper and paperboard production

Latest figures show paper production plummeted but paperboard production increased during 2020.

3 September 2021, Rome - Preliminary data just released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations show how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected paper and paperboard production around the world.

The figures analyse the global production and trade of forest products which include everything from sawnwood and wood fuel to wood-based panels, pulp and paper.

©Iana Arkhipova/FAOWith schools and offices shut and with work and educational activities moving online, there was a sharp decrease in the manufacture of graphic papers during 2020, the data show.

Although the production of printing paper, writing paper and newsprint have been declining every year by 2-3 percent since 2007, last year when the pandemic hit, production plummeted by 11.4 percent. This brought production down from its peak of 153.7 million tonnes thirteen years ago to under 100 million tonnes today.

"The pandemic has caused wide-scale behaviour change on a planetary level which has altered our consumption patterns," said Sven Walter, FAO Senior Forestry Officer. "The likely cause for this decrease in printing and writing paper manufacturing is an increase in people meeting virtually and consuming news digitally."

Conversely, 2020 saw a surge in the production of packaging paper and paperboard and of household and sanitary papers. Production of items in these categories grew by 3 percent to reach a total of 303.6 million tonnes, according to the data. This is twice as much as was it produced thirty years ago in 1990.

"The increase in packaging and hygienic paper production is likely caused by the spike in online shopping during the early phases of the pandemic, as well as by the increased demand for sanitary paper in homes and hospitals," said Iana Arkhipova, Forest Product Statistics Expert and consultant at FAO.