Major Toilet Paper Makers Are Wiping Out the Boreal Forest

WASHINGTON — The 2022 Issue with Tissue report and sustainability scorecard (grading at-home toilet paper brands from “A” to “F”) released today by NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) reveals that more companies are bringing sustainable tissue options to the market than ever before, offering consumers alternatives to products sourced from the climate-critical Canadian boreal forest.

Yet America’s top toilet paper maker, Procter & Gamble (P&G), resolutely refuses to stop making Charmin with large volumes of pulp from the boreal, despite shareholder directives to address forest supply chain impacts, and rapidly growing consumer interest in purchasing toilet paper and tissue brands that are not complicit in clearcutting the last forests untouched by  industrial logging.

“Industry laggards like P&G are fueling a tree-to-toilet pipeline that is flushing away some of the most environmentally important — and threatened — forests in the world,” said Jennifer Skene, NRDC’s Natural Climate Solutions Policy Manager. “The primary forests of the boreal – those areas that have never before been industrially disturbed – must be protected if we’re going to have a chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change. Turning them into toilet paper is a climate crime, especially when done by the very companies that most need to step up to protect our future,” Skene said.

Many major toilet paper brands — most notably, Procter & Gamble’s Charmin — are made almost exclusively from virgin pulp from climate-critical, centuries-old forests in the Canadian boreal. The boreal forest is essential in the fight against climate change, holding more than 300 billion tons of climate-altering carbon — twice as much carbon as the world’s oil reserves — in its soils, plants, and wetlands. The boreal also holds immense value for Indigenous Peoples and threatened species.