With increasing awareness of companies making misleading environmental claims, there are more and more instances of the media calling out greenwashing. The latest example of this positive trend is the BBC’s More Or Less programme on Radio 4, which investigated a recent marketing claim by Serious Tissues. The company, which produces a range of tissue products, ran a radio ad that stated: “15% of global deforestation is from toilet rolls alone. But switch to Serious Tissues and they don’t cut down trees. In fact, Serious Tissues plant a tree for every roll sold.” Following the ad campaign, a number of Radio 4 listeners wrote to More or Less, taking issue with the 15% figure and asking the team to investigate and find out whether that figure was true. On January 29, journalist Charlotte McDonald presented the results of their findings.

We couldn’t have paper and building products without forests. We rely on forests as a company and even more as a community. GP recognizes that forests are beneficial for more than just products that provide financial gain. They also give us clean air, clean water and a place to get away from the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives. Responsible and sustainable forest management must be a top priority for companies like us. At GP, we believe there are some forests that should be protected because of their unique or rare qualities. We have a forest mapping program to identify and protect these endangered forest (EF) areas. It starts with a GIS (geographic information system) process designed for GP by the University of Georgia in its Natural Resources Spacial Analysis Lab. Data sets for the forests in our wood procurement basins are gathered and matched against a set of 12 predetermined criteria that are characteristic of endangered forest areas. These data sets are scored, and the scores determine which forests are considered endangered. Click Read More below for additional detail.

During the first six months of 2023, 21 additional companies representing approximately 90 million customers have removed greenwashing messages such as “Go green, Go paperless” and “Go paperless to help protect the environment” from their marketing communications. “In addition to misleading consumers, these types of unsubstantiated environmental claims pose a serious threat to the economic security of the more than 7 million people whose livelihoods depend on a healthy North American paper, printing and mailing sector,” says Two Sides North America President Kathi Rowzie. “Our recent research found that 65% of consumers who’ve seen anti-paper greenwashing are influenced to go paperless.” That same research found that the Two Sides Anti-greenwashing Campaign has preserved more than $300 million in annual revenue for the paper, printing and mailing sector over the last decade.