The Issue with Tissue
Shining a spotlight on the forest-destructive practices behind major U.S. tissue brands and helping consumers embrace sustainable alternatives.
Since 2019, NRDC’s The Issue with Tissue series has exposed how America’s largest tissue manufacturers are failing the climate, communities, and biodiversity by creating single-use, throwaway products from forests like the Canadian boreal. These annual scorecards grade major toilet paper, paper towel, and facial tissue brands based on their sustainability and provide consumers with a powerful tool for selecting eco-friendly options, such as products made from recycled content and responsibly sourced bamboo.
Throughout this series, the marketplace has shown meaningful signs of shifting toward more sustainable sourcing. In 2024, Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Kleenex, Cottonelle, and Scott tissue products, became the first major U.S. tissue manufacturer to establish concrete commitments to eliminate deforestation and reduce the impact of natural forest degradation across its supply chains. That same year, Georgia-Pacific further signaled growing momentum toward responsible alternatives with the relaunch of its Aria toilet paper line as 100 percent recycled content, replacing its previous forest-fiber version. Despite this progress and the dozens of smaller companies embracing alternatives to the “tree-to-toilet pipeline,” many of the most popular U.S. tissue brands continue to drive devastating impacts to forests.
The Issue with Tissue Seventh Edition
NRDC released The Issue with Tissue Seventh Edition in 2025, which features an updated methodology and includes more tissue products than ever before.
For the first time in this series, Procter & Gamble (P&G) breaks out of the F grade category with its Charmin Ultra Bamboo toilet paper landing a B score. While this product is a step in the right direction, P&G’s flagship tissue brands—including Bounty, Charmin, and Puffs—continue to receive F grades for relying almost exclusively on forest fiber. Given P&G’s failure to address forest degradation in its supply chains, these popular products continue to fuel devastating impacts on the Canadian boreal forest and its threatened species, its vast stores of carbon, and the communities that depend on it.
Our planet cannot wait while the world’s largest companies take half measures or deflect responsibility. As major consumers of wood pulp from Canada, U.S. tissue companies must adopt new practices that align with the preservation of this vital forest and foster a safe, sustainable future. More than ever, consumers want their products to reflect their values. Investors are urging companies to avoid forest degradation in their supply chains. Tissue companies must evolve with the times and embrace transformative, forest- and climate-friendly innovation if they want to stay competitive in an increasingly sustainability-conscious marketplace.
Download the scorecard
Wabakimi Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada, September 2025
Previous editions & fact sheets
In 2024, NRDC released The Issue with Tissue Sixth Edition scorecard, which, for the first time, documented movement by P&G’s closest tissue competitors, Kimberly-Clark and Georgia-Pacific, toward enhanced sustainability that left P&G behind the pack.
Released in 2023, NRDC’s The Issue with Tissue Fifth Edition report and scorecard highlighted a marketplace in continued transition and the rapid rise of sustainable tissue brands that have embraced solutions to halt the tree-to-toilet pipeline and answer consumers’ calls for more eco-friendly options.
Published in 2022, the fourth-edition scorecard underscored the scientific urgency of protecting the world’s remaining primary and older forests. The updated scorecard also unveiled more sustainable tissue product options than ever before, even as P&G, Kimberly-Clark, and Georgia-Pacific continued to receive F grades for each of their flagship brands.
The third-edition scorecard, released in 2021, introduced a new scoring criterion for avoiding sourcing from primary forests, which are areas that have never before been industrially logged. It also established a methodology for evaluating bamboo-based tissue products, reflecting the growing role of this alternative fiber in the U.S. tissue industry.
In 2020, NRDC published The Issue with Tissue Second Edition, which updated the 2019 report to reflect new scientific information and changes in the tissue industry landscape. The reissued scorecard also integrated new brands, new data, and an updated methodology.
In 2019, NRDC and Stand.earth published the first report and scorecard in this series, The Issue with Tissue: How Americans Are Flushing Forests Down the Toilet, which shined a spotlight on the link between major U.S. tissue product manufacturers and the destruction of one of the most ecologically important forests in the world, the boreal forest of Canada. It also included a scorecard for consumers, ranking major toilet paper, paper towel, and facial tissue brands on their sustainability for forests and the climate.
In 2019, NRDC published this fact sheet to answer frequently asked questions about toilet paper, consumption habits, sustainable alternatives, and more.
This 2020 NRDC fact sheet breaks down a series of greenwashing myths used by P&G to hide the devastating impacts of its tissue brands like Charmin on the world’s last intact forests and the global climate.
Tell P&G to stop flushing our forests for profit!
Clearcutting for products like P&G’s Charmin toilet paper is destroying more than one million acres of the boreal forest each year. And P&G is one of the worst exploiters of these forests. Tell P&G's new CEO it's time to commit to sustainable tissue products!
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