Narrow Results

This research develops a difference-in-differences (DID) model to explore the relationship between environmental policy (The Measures for the Administration of Permits for the Discharge of Key Water Pollutants in the Huaihe and Taihu River Basins, MAPD) and the performance of firms involved in the paper and paper products industry (MPP) in China. Cost and innovation are introduced as mediators to explore the mediating effects. A firm-level dataset from 1998 to 2007 is adopted for empirical study. The findings support the positive role of the MAPD, and the average treatment effect is 0.016.The heterogeneity analysis shows that the MAPD exerts a positive impact on non-state-owned and small-scale enterprises, with coefficients of 0.018 and 0.021, respectively. Moreover, MAPD increases enterprise costs harming firm performance. On the other hand, it can promote firm performance by improving innovation ability.

The paper industry supply chain is highly complex and consists of many processes and planning tasks. It starts with the collection of raw wood and ends up in different paper products from paperboard to high class art papers. Managing the supply chain is difficult and the permanently changing business environment constantly brings new challenges. This paper starts with outlining the challenges in the supply chain management of today’s paper industry. After that we evaluate the state of research to determine planning problems covered by the literature. The purpose is to catch up time-wise on the previous overview from 2009 and also to update the planning problems. This overview paper summarizes comprehensively the paper industry as of today. It provides a reference work for researchers and other interested parties, and uncovers areas for future research.

Nanocellulose, due to its sustainability, biodegradability, and high performance such as high tensile stiffness and low thermal expansion coefficient, can potentially replace the fossil fuel-based materials for different applications. Among them, paper and the board industry is the most promising field because of the massive product tonnage of paper. It can be used both as a dry and wet-end in the paper industry such as papermaking, paper coating, packaging, and for the production of hygienic and absorbent products. In this chapter, the first part of the chapter discusses the recent progress in the applications of nanocellulose as a dry- and wet-strength agent. The second part describes the use of nanocellulose in coating and barrier packaging. It needs to provide prospects of nanocellulose by reducing its production cost and post-processing, and explore novel application for paper-based products.