Never before has the gap between the tissue industry’s sustainability leaders and laggards been more apparent. In the nearly five years since NRDC’s initial The Issue with Tissue report and scorecard launch, more sustainable brands have entered the market than ever before. Yet, the largest, most powerful U.S. tissue companies are those that remain entrenched in a destructive “tree-to-toilet pipeline” model that has widespread impacts on the boreal forest in Canada and its inhabitants, threatened species, and vast stores of carbon. Foot-dragging from companies flushing away one of the world’s greatest natural climate allies now increasingly risks leaving themselves marginalized in a marketplace embracing solutions for stronger forest protection.
Now, NRDC’s new The Issue with Tissue Fifth Edition report and scorecard–which grades 145 brands across toilet paper, paper towels, and facial tissue–spotlights the many sustainable alternatives to turning trees into single-use, throwaway tissue products. Of the 29 toilet paper brands that receive A or B grades, half were launched within only the past five years. This includes new private-label brands from retailers, like Target’s Everspring and Field & Future by H-E-B, which each earn A grades for their toilet paper being made from 100 percent recycled content (recycled content has just one-third the carbon emissions compared to tissue made from wood pulp, according to Environmental Paper Network’s Paper Calculator 4.0).
A growing number of tissue brands made from bamboo, including PlantPaper and Amazon Aware, are also among the sustainability leaders in this year’s scorecard. While less environmentally friendly than recycled content, bamboo is a fast-growing plant with a much smaller land use and carbon footprint compared to wood pulp. Importantly, bamboo’s sustainability can vary, so consumers should opt for those bamboo products that carry the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) logo, which indicates that the fiber was grown and sourced in a way that limits negative forest impacts. All FSC-certified bamboo brands earn B grades in our scorecard, falling just behind the A scores of recycled fiber products.
As more sustainable tissue brands have gained traction, so have other tissue-saving products. Bidets and bidet toilet seat attachments have been rising in popularity in the United States, and not only help to reduce the use of toilet paper but also use less water per use than the tissue-making process does. Reusable cloth napkins and cloth towels as substitutes for paper towels is another great option for consumers looking to reduce their use of disposable household tissue products.
Despite the many signs of progress in the report, there is still a long way to go for some of the largest brands available in the U.S. tissue market. The “Big Three” U.S. tissue producers–Procter & Gamble (P&G), Kimberly-Clark, and Georgia-Pacific–continue to make their flagship tissue brands like Charmin, Cottonelle, and Quilted Northern almost entirely from forest fiber and fail to avoid supply chains that degrade irreplaceable primary forests. These brands have now earned consistently failing scores across all five editions of NRDC’s Issue with Tissue scorecard.
