Sustainable TP is on a Roll, But Charmin Stays Rough on Forests

In the 1960s, Procter & Gamble's (P&G) first "Please don't squeeze the Charmin" ad campaign helped propel the toilet paper brand to the top of the tissue market, creating and feeding an unprecedented and uniquely American fixation on softness in toilet paper. Now this prioritization of extreme softness at the expense of forests like the climate-critical Canadian boreal is leaving P&G out of step with where the marketplace is heading and with what our climate reality demands.

NRDC's new The Issue with Tissue report and scorecard show a marketplace in continued transition, with P&G's closest tissue competitors, Kimberly-Clark and Georgia-Pacific, making strides toward enhanced sustainability that leave P&G behind the pack. The scorecard reviews a total of 145 products, including toilet paper, paper towels, and facial tissues, and awards brands an A+ through F grade based on their sustainability for forests and the climate.

The above graphic features a limited selection of the brands reviewed in The Issue with Tissue Sixth Edition scorecard.

Nabbing the highest overall score this year is Georgia-Pacific's ARIA toilet paper. Formerly made from forest fiber, the brand relaunched in 2024 as a product made from 100% recycled content, with a high percentage of postconsumer content. This transformation catapulted it from its previous F grade straight to an A+ spot-the greatest leap toward sustainability by any individual brand since the launch of NRDC's first tissue scorecard in 2019. This switch from forest fiber to recycled content boasts a two-thirds reduction in carbon-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions and cuts required water use in half, according to calculations using the Environmental Paper Network's Paper Calculator 4.0.

Similarly, Kimberly-Clark made notable strides this year as the first forest fiber tissue company in NRDC's scorecard to demonstrate progress toward eliminating deforestation and forest degradation throughout its supply chains. The company's new forest policy and goals, announced earlier this year, include commitments to avoiding deforestation and reducing the impact of natural forest degradation across its supply chains. Although lacking a time-bound commitment, the company also set an ambition to rid its entire product line of natural forest fiber. Given these developments, Kimberly-Clark's tissue brand offerings-Cottonelle, Scott, Viva, and Kleenex-each took a step up from their former F grades to now scoring Ds.

While Kimberly-Clark and Georgia-Pacific still have much more progress to make, this year's improvements stand in stark contrast to P&G's near total stagnation. For the sixth year in a row, P&G's flagship tissue brands, Charmin, Bounty, and Puffs, each received F grades for continuing to be made almost exclusively from forest fiber, despite the existence of sustainable alternatives. The company's years of inaction not only continue to fuel widespread impacts on the Canadian boreal forest and its threatened species, its vast stores of carbon, and the communities that depend on it-it's also led to growing discontent with P&G's leadership. This includes the nearly 500,000 consumers who have signed petitions urging the P&G CEO to stop flushing our forests, as well as the shareholders who, concerned over the company's irresponsible forest sourcing practices, voted tens of billions of dollars in shares against the re-election of P&G board members last October.

Thankfully, consumers now have a slew of sustainable tissue brands to choose from. Of the 61 toilet paper products reviewed in this year's scorecard, 28 received a B grade or higher-and there are even more sustainable options beyond those NRDC reviewed. Top spots went to recycled content brands, like Seventh Generation, Green Forest, and Whole Foods Market's 100% recycled content line, in addition to ARIA. Brands receiving a B grade include 100% bamboo fiber brands that have been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), like PlantPaper, Caboo, and Reel. Although bamboo's footprint is larger than recycled content, its carbon and land impacts are much smaller than those of northern bleached softwood kraft fiber, a form of wood pulp that overwhelmingly comes from the Canadian boreal forest. Furthermore, tissue-saving options like bidets and bidet toilet seat attachments, which may help to reduce toilet paper use by 75% to as much as 90%, have seen rising popularity in the United States.

Retailers also have a major role to play in ensuring customers have access to sustainable brands. NRDC's recent Selling the World's Forestsreportfound that U.S. retailers are failing their customers and the planet by selling tissue products and other goods sourced from climate-critical forests, despite investors, policymakers, and consumers demanding they take responsibility for their part in securing a livable future. Even retailers with high-scoring private-label products in NRDC's scorecard, like Everspring by Target and Simple Truth by Kroger, have much more they can do to help ensure that all brands they sell to shoppers are forest-friendly and climate-safe.

From store aisles to shareholder meetings, consumers and investors alike are taking note of how outmoded business models like P&G's continue flushing away vital forest ecosystems. Meanwhile, the competition is innovating and evolving toward a more sustainable, future-proof approach that seeks alignment between planetary needs and market demands. P&G can't undo its six-year failing record, but there's still a chance for the company to forge a new, more responsible path forward.

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