Our footprint stage one: raw materials
People are often interested to learn more about how we make Naked Paper, and the CO2e emissions* involved at every stage.
So we're breaking it all down, from root to roll, starting with our raw materials and how they get to our factory.
The standard way
-
Most standard toilet paper is made from virgin tree fibre grown in farmed monoculture forests.
-
Recycled toilet rolls are typically made from office paper that can be sourced from the UK or abroad. This printed material is bleached to make white rolls.
- Bamboo toilet paper is usually mass-produced in China and shipped as finished rolls of tissue around the world.
How we’re different
We make two types of tissue:
♻️Recycled – Waste packing materials are collected from businesses near our Spanish factory, keeping transport chains short and strengthening local recycling networks. Using plain brown card and paper means we can skip the bleach.
🌿Bamboo – Our bamboo is grown in two huge natural forests in China, each of them certified by the FSC for sustainable forest management. The unbleached bamboo pulp is shipped in compact rectangular bales to our factory via river and sea freight. We don’t ship finished rolls of toilet paper from China.
We use a few other simple ingredients to make Naked Paper, and we count the emissions of their production, and getting them to the factory as well:
🫧Non-toxic, REACH-certified soaps, salts, and glue derived from pine sap
🌞The locally-produced biofuels we use in our furnace (see our manufacturing stage article for more on what these are)
📦Packaging and inner tubes made from locally-recycled materials
This is what it looks like:
Cutting emissions at the root
Our raw material and transport emissions are lower than those of other brands, but we still take a lot of care to lower them wherever we can, because they make up the largest share of the total Naked Paper footprint. This makes our rolls a bit special. For most toilet paper, raw materials and shipping is just one part of the climate footprint. For us, it’s nearly the whole thing.
That’s because, for toilet rolls made the standard way, the biggest chunk of emissions comes next, in manufacturing.
That’s where we roll out the innovations that make the Naked Paper footprint so much smaller than the standard.
Want to know more? Roll on to part two.
And if you want to try the toilet paper, kitchen rolls, and tissues made from all this lovely stuff, check out our shop.
*Where do we get these numbers?
The numbers on our boxes and our website show our “CO₂e” per KG of product.
CO2e stands for carbon dioxide equivalents. This is a way to show the total amount of climate-changing gases that are released into the atmosphere as a result of making something; also known as our “emissions,” or “climate footprint.”
We’ve made our CO2e footprint public to normalise transparency around emissions and show that we are aware of the full climate impact of making Naked Paper.
We’re calling on other brands to do the same.
To measure our emissions, we commissioned an independent cradle-to-grave lifecycle analysis in line with ISO 14067 – the international standard for measuring and reporting a product’s climate footprint.
-
Figures for Naked Paper have been calculated by sustainability consultancy Inèdit, working closely with our factory to analyse every stage of production.
-
Figures for standard virgin wood, bamboo, and recycled toilet paper sold in the UK have been calculated by Carbon Footprint Ltd. They used published data and known facts about typical industry supply chains.
Recent blog posts
-
Join our team trip to the factory!
A couple of weeks ago, most of the Naked Paper team packed our bags and headed off to northern Spain to visit the factory where all our soft, sustainable toilet paper, kitchen rolls, and tissues are made. For our founders Tom...
-
Beyond the bog standard: five years of Naked Paper
When we launched Naked Paper five years ago, we expected to stand out. Selling bleach-free, brown toilet paper is a guaranteed conversation starter; we knew people would notice, we just didn’t know if they’d get on board. Companies like Naked Paper...
-
Introducing recycled kitchen roll and tissues
At Naked Paper, we like to think that change can happen in the most everyday parts of life. In fact, the everyday parts of life, like toilet rolls for example, are often the best place to make changes. When daily-use...
