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Georgia-Pacific LLC. is an American pulp and paper company based in Atlanta, Georgia, and is one of the world's leading manufacturers and distributors of tissue, pulp, paper, packaging, building products and related chemicals. It has over 55,000 employees at 300 facilities in the United States, Canada and many other countries.

Georgia-Pacific was founded by Owen Robertson Cheatham in 1927 in Augusta, Georgia as the Georgia Hardwood Lumber Co. Over the years it expanded, adding sawmills and plywood lumber mills. In 1956 the company changed its name to Georgia-Pacific Corp. In 1957 the company entered the pulp and paper business by building a kraft pulp and linerboard mill at Toledo, Oregon. The company continued to make acquisitions, including US Plywood Corp. in 1987,Great Northern Nekoosa Corp. in 1990 and the Fort James Corp. in 2000. In August 2001, Georgia-Pacific completed the sale of four uncoated paper mills and their associated businesses and assets to Canadian papermaker Domtar for US$1.65 billion.

It was announced on November 13, 2005 that Georgia-Pacific would be acquired by Koch Industries.^[1][2] On December 23, 2005, Koch Industries finalized the $21 billion acquisition of Georgia-Pacific. Georgia-Pacific was removed from the NYSE (it had traded under the symbol GP) and shareholders surrendered their shares for about $48/share.

The Georgia-Pacific Tower in Atlanta continues to house the company's headquarters.

Based on year 2000 data,^[3] researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts named Georgia-Pacific as the fifteenth-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States. In that year, Georgia-Pacific facilities released more than 22,000,000 pounds of toxic chemicals into the air.^[4] Georgia-Pacific has also been linked to some of the United States' worst toxic waste sites. In 1995, the company drew criticism for allegedly pressuring the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to approve legislation that would allow Georgia-Pacific to "avoid installing pollution gear at many of its plants."^[5]. In 1996, Georgia-Pacific agreed to pay for at least US$26,000,000 in environmental measures and $6,000,000 in fines to settle allegations that particle emissions from its facilities endangered people and crops in the southeastern U.S.^[6] In 2007, the United States Environmental Protection Agency announced legal agreements among the EPA, Michigan, Georgia-Pacific, and Millennium Holdings requiring the companies to clean up an estimated $21,000,000 worth of environmental damage to the Plainwell Impoundment Area. Another settlement required an additional $15,000,000 of environmental work on the Kalamazoo River Superfund site. ^[7].

In October 2007, a Georgia-Pacific lumber processing plant near Brunswick, Georgia was reported to be operating a whites-only bathroom. African American employees were prohibited from using the toilet because a white Georgia-Pacific employee believed that races should not integrate.^[8] Whereas whites were freely permitted to use the company toilet, African Americans were forced to go off into the woods to go the bathroom. ^[9] Such practice of segregation in the work place is in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and currently Georgia-Pacific is under suit for racial discrimination.

1. ^ Welcome to the Koch Industries' Newsroom
2. ^ Welcome to the Koch Industries' Newsroom
3. ^ Political Economy Research Institute Toxic 100 Corporate Toxics Information Project Technical Notes retrieved 12 Nov 2007
4. ^ Political Economy Research Institute
5. ^ "Tall Timber and the EPA," New York Times, May 21, 1995
6. ^ "U.S. and Georgia-Pacific Settle Environmental Case," New York Times, July 19, 1996
7. ^ Environmental Protection Agency
8. ^ "A Whites-Only Bathroom on the First Coast?" November 8, 2007
9. ^ "Whites-Only Bathroom In Georgia?" November 9, 2007

• Company web site