- Written by Bob Bruce PhD, Innogyps
The first time I remember being exposed to the overall concept of 'Megatrends' was about 40 years ago with the publication of 'Future Shock' (Toffler, 1970). This book described the social changes associated with the rapid growth of information and technology change. Since then there have been several books, many with 'Megatrends' (Naisbitt, 1982) in the name, that have described how the future was going to be affected by many factors including globalisation, decentralisation, networking, many choices, women, religion, growth, arts, individual rights, demographics, conscious capitalism, global power shifts, energy, the environment and ethics to name more than a few. The purpose of this article is to take five obvious megatrends of today and to describe how the gypsum industry is likely to be affected by these over the next 15 years.
The megatrends that will be discussed in this article are information, energy supply, sustainability, demographics/wealth and globalisation/power. It is possible to write a book about every one of these topics, so I will not try to cover these topics in detail, only to point out that each of these things are very important today and that they will affect the gypsum industry into the future.
I will describe some basic points of each topic as a background for the discussion about how this will affect the gypsum industry, specifically how it will impact on markets, customers, products and services, suppliers, costs/profits and the gypsum companies that operate in this industry globally.
- Written by David Hayes, special correspondent
Japan's gypsum board industry has faced challenging market conditions during the past two years with the global economic crisis slowing investment in the domestic property market and causing a downturn in demand for construction materials including plasterboard. Global Gypsum Magazine's special correspondent has been to visit Yoshino in Tokyo, and brings back this exclusive report on trends in Japan's gypsum industry.
Demand for gypsum board is expected to grow as Japan's economy recovers and investment in residential and commercial property begins to rise again. For the country's plasterboard manufacturers, the task ahead is to ensure high production efficiency in their production plants and to continue marketing efforts to increase the proportion of gypsum board used in property construction.
"The gypsum board market peaked here at 605.2 million square metres in 2006 but since the recent recession the market has declined," commented Yoshino Gypsum Co Ltd technical department manager, Kazuyuki Umehara, "Japan's economic situation is down now and there is little demand for construction projects. There are only a few new buildings. Housing project starts during the past four years have been declining. Japan's ageing society is a problem but mainly it is due to the economic conditions."
