Everyone remembers the 2022 energy shock. Nobody remembers what it did to the ream of A4 sitting in the printer tray.
Here is the ten-year record for uncoated 75–80 gsm paper — the exact grade your office buys — in the EU, from the D-Last Price EU index as compiled by PricePedia:
| Year | €/tonne | vs 2016 |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 669 | — |
| 2017 | 678 | +1.3% |
| 2018 | 751 | +12.3% |
| 2019 | 751 | +12.3% |
| 2020 | 661 | −1.2% |
| 2021 | 682 | +1.9% |
| 2022 | 1,100 | +64.4% |
| 2023 | 1,073 | +60.4% |
| 2024 | 916 | +36.9% |
| 2025 | 857 | +28.1% |
Three things jump out. First, 2016–2021 was a flat line: paper was boring, and boring was cheap. Second, 2022 was a wall: +61% in a single year, the largest jump in the series. Third — and this is the part procurement teams miss — the price never came back. 2025 sits 28% above 2016 and 26% above 2021. The energy crisis didn’t spike paper prices and reset them. It re-based them.
The US tells the same story in different units. The Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price index for writing and printing papers (WPU091301, 1982=100) ran at 184.7 in January 2015 and 244.1 in January 2025: +32% over ten years, with the same 2022 step-change (218.7 in January 2022, up from 188.1 a year earlier).
What actually drives the price
Paper is 90% water and 10% decisions. The decisions, in order of cost impact:
Pulp. Bleached softwood kraft pulp — the feedstock for most copy paper — traded around $1,500–1,520 per tonne in mid-2025 (Fastmarkets, July 2025), roughly double the 2020 low. The EU’s own import data shows the shock: bleached softwood pulp import prices peaked at €977 per tonne in 2022 (TradeDashboard, CN 470321). Pulp mills are energy hogs, so the next driver is the same driver as everything else in this building.
Energy. PricePedia’s analysis of the 2022 spike is blunt: European graphic paper prices rose 67% in 2022, and the decline after the energy market stabilized was slower than the decline in electricity prices. Paper mills carry their energy costs forward. That is why the 2023–2025 price path is a slow slide, not a snap-back.
Logistics and freight. The 2021–2022 container crisis added a second layer on top of energy, and the 2022 pulp import shock (a 44% jump in US-origin pulp prices into the EU, per TradeDashboard) shows how quickly a single trade lane can move the whole market.
The result: a commodity that was flat for five years is now structurally more expensive, and the 2025 price is still falling — Fastmarkets’ UK A4 copy paper assessment (B-grade, 80 gsm) was £1,000–1,040 per tonne in July 2025, down 3.3% year on year, but down from £1,164–1,211 in June. Falling, not cheap.
What a 50-person office actually pays
Now the P&L part. The Irish EPA’s waste-prevention benchmark for offices puts average paper use at 20 reams per person per year — 45 sheets per person per day — against a good-practice level of 7 reams (16 sheets per day).
Run that for a 50-person office:
- 50 people × 20 reams = 1,000 reams per year (2.5 tonnes of 80 gsm A4)
- Retail prices for a 500-sheet 80 gsm ream in 2025: €3.58 (Ecolinq, Netherlands, 5-ream pack, excl. VAT) to €8.99 (Right Price Ink, Ireland, incl. VAT); €6.50 in Latvia (Charlot), €8.00 in Spain (Forestals). Mid-market, excl. VAT: call it €5 per ream
- Annual paper bill: ~€5,000 — €100 per employee per year, before ink, toner, maintenance and the shredder
Here is the receipt that stings: at the 2025 wholesale price of €857 per tonne, the paper itself costs your office about €2,143 a year. You pay roughly €2,850 more than the mill price — distribution, brand, shelf space and VAT. The commodity is 43% of the invoice. The rest is the supply chain you never see.
And the trend line matters for budgeting: an office that bought the same 1,000 reams in 2016 at the then-wholesale level would have paid roughly €1,670 for the paper. The same habit now costs €2,143 at wholesale and €5,000 at retail. The office that did nothing paid 28% more for the same reams, and the gap is permanent.
What you save
Cut paper 30% and the number is €1,500 per year.
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A 50-person office at the 20-reams-per-person benchmark uses 1,000 reams a year. A 30% cut removes 300 reams — at €5 per ream, that is €1,500 per year, €30 per employee, recurring, with no capex and no contract negotiation.
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The EPA’s own good-practice benchmark is 7 reams per person per year — a 65% cut from the average, worth about €3,250 a year for the same office. Getting from 20 to 14 reams (the 30% target) is the realistic first step: default to double-sided, kill the standing print jobs, and route approvals digitally. The 30% is the number you can defend in a budget meeting; the 65% is the number you get once the habit is dead.
Methodology
Wholesale prices: D-Last Price EU, uncoated paper 75–80 gsm, annual averages in €/tonne, as published in PricePedia’s July 14, 2025 graphic paper price update (data 2016–2025, 2025 partial year). US producer prices: BLS PPI series WPU091301 (writing and printing papers, 1982=100), January values via FRED. Current market prices: Fastmarkets PPI Europe, issue 27, July 2025 (UK A4 copy assessments, £/tonne; pulp assessments, $/tonne). Pulp import prices: TradeDashboard, CN 470321, EU 2015–2025. Consumption benchmark: EPA Ireland, Waste Prevention 2022, public sector offices. Retail ream prices: Ecolinq (NL), Right Price Ink (IE), Charlot (LV), Forestals (ES), checked November 2026. Office cost model: 50 employees × 20 reams/person/year × €5/ream excl. VAT.
Sources
- PricePedia (P. Marzano), Graphic Paper Prices: July 2025 Update, 14 Jul 2025: https://www.pricepedia.it/en/magazine/article/2025/07/14/graphic-paper-prices-europe-july-2025/
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, PPI WPU091301 (via FRED): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU091301
- Fastmarkets, PPI Europe issue 27, July 2025 (A4 copy and pulp assessments): https://fastmarkets.com/uploads/2025/07/PPIE_27_2025.pdf
- TradeDashboard, Bleached softwood pulp (CN 470321) market evolution 2015–2025: https://tradedashboard.eu/reports/bleached-softwood-pulp-470321-2015-2025-en-e509d74e.html
- EPA Ireland, Waste Prevention 2022 — Paper fact sheet for public sector offices: https://epa.ie/media/epa-2020/monitoring-amp-assessment/circular-economy/Waste-Prevention-2022-Public-Sector-Offices.pdf
- Ecolinq, A4 80 gsm 5-ream pack (NL): https://www.ecolinq.com/products/a4-copier-printer-paper-80-gsm-5-reams-of-500-sheets
- Right Price Ink, Canon A4 80 gsm ream (IE): https://rightpriceink.ie/product/canon-a4-paper-yellow-label-80gsm-80-g-m%C2%B2-a-multifunctional-a4-80gsm-paper/
- Charlot, MultiCopy A4 80 gsm ream (LV): https://charlot.lv/office-paper/paper-multicopy-a480g500sh/
- Forestals, A4 80 gsm ream (ES): https://forestals.com/product/paper-a4-500sheets-80gsm/
Next leak to fix
Paper is the visible leak, but the same 30% of documents that never get read are also eating toner and printer maintenance — typically 2–3× the paper cost for a 50-person office. Before you renegotiate the paper contract, pull 12 months of printer meter readings and find the three machines doing 60% of the volume. That is the next article in this series, and the bigger number.
Carla Lavigne is Green Ops Editor at mycompanyisgreen.org and the colleague who brings the calculator to the audit.
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