Conducting Business Responsibly

At Verso Paper, our vision is to be a company with passion that is trusted and respected by all. To help us achieve this goal, we implemented the Verso Paper Code of Business Conduct. The Code provides our directors, officers and other employees with clear, concise and firm guidelines for ethical business conduct and is supported and reinforced at all levels of Verso Paper. We also published Verso’s Our Way policies, to spell out exactly what we expect of one another as Verso employees. Our Way focuses on the Three Cs: our culture, our colleagues and our compliance commitment. Each policy contained in Our Way is grounded in Verso’s founding principles to encourage an environment of mutual respect, accountability, truth and transparency.

Verso Paper provides equal employment opportunity for all qualified individuals, regardless of their age, gender, marital status, national origin, race, color, religion, disability, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other category protected by applicable law. All employment decisions are based on job-related requirements. This policy pertains to recruiting, hiring, training and development, promotions, compensation, benefits, transfers, education, company activities and all other aspects of employment with Verso Paper.

Our leadership team is responsible for bringing this policy to the attention of all employees, for implementing it through diversity awareness at all company operations within their areas of responsibility and for ensuring that all personnel actions are administered in a manner consistent with this policy.

Attracting and retaining top talent is a key focus of Verso Paper. To accomplish this, we offer competitive compensation, health and welfare benefits and opportunities for advancement and training. Our compensation program is based on competitive market analysis, job responsibilities and individual performance. In addition, to enhance our employees' well-being we offer a 401k savings plan with an attractive matching company contribution along with a defined contribution retirement plan. We also pride ourselves on our people development program which promotes continual dialogue on learning and growth opportunities between supervisors and employees. To complement this important program, we continue to develop training programs and offer a competitive education assistance program.

All of our people are expected to comply in all respects with the laws, rules and regulations that apply to Verso Paper and our business. This requirement applies to both the letter and the spirit of the law.

Some 35% of our employees are represented by labor unions, including the United Steelworkers of America, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Office and Professional Employees International Labor Union. We participate in the collective bargaining process with these employees to establish wages, benefits and other workplace requirements. In 2007, we successfully negotiated new contract agreements with union employees at our Bucksport, ME, and Sartell, MN, mills. These agreements will expire in 2011. Our Androscoggin Mill in Maine and our Quinnesec Mill in Michigan are union-free facilities.

Sustainability - the ability to manage the financial, social and environmental aspects of the business in a sustainable manner without adversely impacting future generations – is at the core of Verso Paper’s business philosophy. Our commitment to sustainability reaches into virtually every area of our business, from fiber procurement to manufacturing to product stewardship. Because we manufacture products from trees, one of the few truly renewable resources on earth, we go to great lengths to ensure that the wood fiber we use in our products comes from forests that are managed to remain healthy, productive and biologically diverse for generations to come.

We know that running a sustainable business requires more than just making and selling paper. To be truly sustainable, Verso must be an active participant in the communities where our employees live, work and play. Ultimately, we depend on the health and vitality of these communities for our social license to operate. We count good citizenship among our core values, and it takes many forms at Verso.

At the most basic level, we provide economic support to our communities by employing nearly 3,000 people across the United States, primarily in Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Tennessee. As a leading employer, we pay among the highest wages in the communities where we operate and in our mill communities we contribute a significant percentage of the local tax revenue.

We purchase many of the goods and services needed to run our operations from local/regional suppliers. In 2007, these purchases totaled more than $260 million from nearly 2,000 companies. In addition, we spent more than $200 million with local/regional suppliers on wood needed to make our products.

Verso’s community participation is driven by our employees who contribute thousands of hours each year in various company-sponsored and individual volunteer efforts to enhance the quality of life in our communities. Together with our employees, Verso makes financial and in-kind contributions to support a variety of community organizations. United Way is the centerpiece of our contribution efforts. We chose the United Way because of its focus on identifying specific local needs and because all the money raised remains in our local communities to help our neighbors.

Through our corporate Community Giving Program, Verso offers Employee Involvement Grants to encourage and support our employees in their volunteer efforts, and we give preference in allocating funds to organizations where our employees volunteer their time and talents. Any regular, full-time employee with at least 90 days of Verso service and a minimum of six months active volunteer service is eligible to apply for a grant for his or her charitable organization.