BillerudKorsnäs aims to divest the Beetham mill

The development of sustainable packaging solutions is not a new endeavor at Sun Chemical but has accelerated in the past ten years as awareness of environmental issues has dramatically increased, as has the demand for cutting and recycling household waste and reducing carbon emissions and other pollutants. Consequently, Sun Chemical has organized a Corporate Sustainability Committee to further strengthen its approach to addressing the sustainability needs of the packaging industry. Comprised of eight executive leaders, including Myron Petruch, Carlo Musso, Chris Parrilli, Fernando Tavara, Robert Fitzka, Greg Hayes, Russell Schwartz, and Jim Van Horn, the Corporate Sustainability Committee will work together to guarantee company-wide engagement in sustainability initiatives and will build and oversee the company’s sustainability strategy, ensuring that proper resources are assigned for timely and effective implementation.

Total Packaging Papers & Specialty Packaging shipments in December increased eight percent compared to December 2019. They were up five percent when compared to the same 12 months of 2019. The operating rate was 83.3 percent, up 0.6 points from December 2019 and essentially flat (-0.2 pts.) year-to-date. Mill inventories at the end of December increased 2,000 short tons from the previous month and were up 3,000 short tons compared to December 2019.

Graphic Packaging Holding Company announced the conclusion of its successful partnership with International Paper Company. The final tranche of the membership interests held by International Paper in Graphic Packaging International Partners, LLC (the "Partnership") were exchanged for an equivalent number of shares of Graphic Packaging common stock. As a result, Graphic Packaging now owns 100% of the Partnership. Michael Doss, the Company's President and CEO, said, "The partnership with International Paper played an important role as we established our leadership position in fiber-based consumer packaging across all three paperboard substrates. The highly integrated model we have built enables us to serve a broad set of global customers with new and innovative packaging solutions, positioning us to achieve the ambitious growth and return goals established in Vision 2025. Through the combination with International Paper's consumer packaging business, along with our other organic and inorganic growth initiatives, we have built scale across all three paperboard substrates, and have unique flexibility to quickly meet changing demand patterns for sustainable packaging solutions and deliver value for all stakeholders."