http://inthesetimes.com   Saturday Jul 20, 2013 10:00 am

By Kari Lydersen

The pulp and paper mill industry may be able to avoid large cuts in jobs by reducing energy costs.   (Ann Baekken/ Flickr / Creative Commons).

The complex relationship between efficiency, productivity and employment has been debated at great length by academics and policymakers, who often come to widely differing conclusions about whether jobs will inherently be sacrificed as industry gets more efficient. A prime example is occurring in the U.S. pulp and paper industry, which, over the last decade, has seen productivity and exports grow, even as hundreds of mills closed and 100,000 workers—30 percent of the industry’s workforce—lost their jobs.

But a new report released last week by the environmental think tank World Resources Institute (WRI) proposes that by investing in overhauls that increase energy efficiency, thereby cutting costs on electricity and improving productivity, the country’s paper…