Why is sustainability important to Cascades?

Cascades is a leader in the recovery and manufacturing of environmentally friendly packaging and hygiene products. Our business model is based on circular economy and eco-design principles. Sustainability has been integral to our company’s DNA since 1964. Our mission is to improve the well-being of people, communities, and the planet by providing sustainable and innovative solutions that create value. Over the years, Cascades remained a sustainability leader largely owing to its extensive material recovery and recycling activities, ambitious sustainability action plans driving positive improvements, extensive employee benefits programs, and active support for countless organizations and causes. We are sustainability experts who care in maximizing our partners’ business potential while minimizing their environmental footprint. For the past six years, we have been recognized among the most sustainable corporations in the world according to the Global 100 by Corporate Knights.

Which product, innovation, or accomplishment are you most proud of from a sustainability standpoint?

This year, we developed the Cascades PRO Perform Premium Multifold Hand Towel: A new premium multifold towel made with 100% recycled fibers, offering a level of performance and quality that rivals other premium options on the market that are mainly made with virgin fibers. We are incredibly proud to provide another sustainable solution with the Green Seal mark without compromising on quality, all at a competitive price. This innovation underscores our dedication to sustainability, demonstrating that top-tier products can combine high- performance and lower environmental impacts.

What kind of health or sustainability features and information are your customers looking for today?

We believe our customers are looking for tissue paper products that ensure their health and safety by avoiding harmful substances and chemicals during the manufacturing process. They are also looking for products and packaging that embody high environmental standards, including the use of recycled and recyclable materials as well as reduced footprints thanks to sustainable manufacturing and operations. Third-party certifications are crucial allies in ensuring that consumer products meet high health, safety, and environmental standards which reflect our added value proposal. Certifications like Green Seal, which focuses on product-specific criteria including chlorine-free processes and packaging recyclability for better end-of-life management, are essential for Cascades PRO® in providing products that meet high customer standards and requirements for safe ingredients and restricted substances.

How do you choose your ecolabel partners?

At Cascades, the selection of ecolabel partners is based on our values as a company and our commitment to offering quality products that meet our health and sustainability standards. Certifications are a stamp of credibility for us, and they demonstrate our customer integrity and dedication to our values. We believe our customers want to work with suppliers that share their commitment to sustainability. To us, the Green Seal label is a clear testament to the fact that Cascades’ products meet high environmental standards, which differentiates us from the competition.

How do you use Green Seal certification in your business?

We highlight our Green Seal-certified products in our communications, including sales material, marketing tools, and social media platforms. We also put the Green Seal mark on our packaging.

What’s next for Cascades?

Cascades continues to develop its sustainability expertise and leadership through innovative products and packaging solutions. We will also demonstrate our commitment through a renewed sustainability agenda, as our current sustainability action plan ends in 2025. Ambitious and science-based approaches will remain key for us, in alignment with the expectations of our stakeholders. Recycled content continues to be an important component of our business model, as well as initiatives such as third-party certifications, to support our goals and those of our business partners in our common journey for a more sustainable future.

Sanitary paper products, including toilet paper, towels, and facial tissue, are daily essentials. The U.S. consumes approximately 19.2 billion pounds of them annually – roughly 56 pounds per person. But as single-use products made from virgin tree fiber, they can carry a hefty environmental footprint.  

That’s why we’re proposing a leadership standard for sanitary paper products that contain no virgin tree fiber and meet meaningful manufacturing and packaging sustainability requirements.   

Green Seal has long recognized manufacturing leaders that use 100% recycled fiber. Now, we’re adding a certification pathway for tree-free products like those made from bamboo. This will expand opportunities for brands that produce responsibly sourced alternative-fiber sanitary paper to verify their sustainability leadership and give consumers more certified choices in this product category.  

A High-Impact Product Category 

The fiber composition of sanitary paper products has a significant impact on their overall environmental footprint.  

Making these products with virgin tree fiber heavily contributes to deforestation, denuding 28 million acres of the ecologically valuable Boreal forest in a 20-year period – an area roughly the size of Ohio. 

Converting virgin wood into pulp is an extremely energy-intensive process. Papermaking is the third-largest energy consuming manufacturing sector, after chemicals and petroleum and coal products. In fact, products made from virgin tree fiber can generate three times as many CO₂ emissions as products made from other types of pulp. Making paper from virgin tree fiber also guzzles massive amounts of water, demanding more than 24 billion gallons a day.  

Reducing the Impacts of an Everyday Product 

Using recycled or alternative fiber significantly reduces the carbon and water impacts of producing sanitary paper products and eliminates their impact on deforestation.  

By meeting stringent fiber sourcing and manufacturing criteria, Green Seal-certified sanitary paper products save an average of 30.5 billion gallons of water and 11.7 million metric tons of CO2 emissions a year – the equivalent of taking 2.8 million cars off the road.  

Under our new standard, Green Seal will: 

• Verify products use no virgin tree fiber 

• Validate significant savings in carbon pollution and water use 

• Confirm a product is made without fragrances, PFAS, or any other harmful chemicals 

Buyers trust Green Seal-certified sanitary paper products because they significantly reduce carbon emissions, protect ancient and endangered forests, and preserve water resources. Our new standard maintains this leadership bar while growing market impact by inviting a broader group of manufacturers to verify their sustainability achievement. 

Lend us your voice 

We believe a collaborative approach leads to better outcomes for everyone. We developed our draft standard in collaboration with the leading towel and tissue brands, purchasers and policy advocates in our Working Group to promote industry alignment on meaningful claims and criteria for this product category.  

We want to hear from you too. We are accepting public comment on our proposed criteria for sanitary paper products through April 28, 2025. 

Learn more and submit your comment here. 

What does sustainability mean to Marcal Paper? 

Since the 1950s, Marcal Paper has been committed to sustainability, long before it was “fashionable.” Marcal is dedicated to protecting our planet – for current and future generations – and making a positive impact on the environment by providing high-quality products while minimizing our ecological footprint. 

Why do you partner with Green Seal? 

We believe that Green Seal is the largest and most respected third-party environmental accreditation organization in the U.S. Furthermore, many of our customer partners, as well as government organizations, require LEED points and products that are Green Seal certified. So, choosing to partner with Green Seal was not only a decision based on good stewardship of our environment, but it was also a good business decision. 

What product, innovation, or accomplishment are you most proud of from a sustainability standpoint? 

We are extremely proud that we do not use any trees to supply our paper mills — just wastepaper that could have ended up in our landfills. However, our new NTT Paper Machine at the Natchez, MS, paper mill is our newest shining star when it comes to innovation and sustainability. 

Recently, an independent third-party, in-depth study was performed and found that Marcal’s new NTT Paper Machine with premium Structured Sheet Technology reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) manufacturing emissions by an impressive 41% when compared to Through-Air-Dried (TAD) premium towels. Now, customers who want a premium paper towel can choose a quality product that is environmentally preferable. 

What’s the biggest sustainability challenge you’re facing? 

Sourcing affordable, quality, recycled fiber has always been a challenge. As the market for recycled paper products continues to expand, fiber prices rise and the availability of clean, quality fiber gets tighter. That is why Marcal Paper continues to invest in the most modern technology available to allow for use of a wider variety of recycled fiber to keep our pricing competitive and our quality high. 

What kind of health or sustainability features and information are your customers looking for today? 

The majority of our customers are looking for high-quality paper products that are made from 100% recycled fiber. A large percentage of those are looking for products that contain a large amount of post-consumer fiber and paper that is processed without using bleach or other harsh chemicals. But it doesn’t stop there. We have had customers ask if our towels are safe for use in their worm farm or if we use any animal byproducts because they want vegan paper towels and tissue. 

What’s next for Marcal Paper? 

Since Marcal developed the process of using recycled fiber to make quality towels and tissue in the 1950s, we have never stopped searching for ways to provide quality paper products with the least impact on our planet. Stay tuned to find out what the next big Marcal innovation will be.

Green Seal is recruiting qualified applicants to join a working group that will assist with a revision to our GS-1 Sanitary Paper Products standard. We are looking for individuals that can provide technical and market expertise and have specialized knowledge of the paper industry, solid waste and recycling, and carbon benefits of alternative fibers (e.g., bamboo). Learn more here. 

Reducing the Impacts of an Everyday Product

Sanitary paper products such as toilet paper, paper towels, and facial tissues are essential items used at home and work each day. These products are typically used only once before being thrown or flushed away. Pulp used to make these products can come from several sources, including wood (virgin fiber), recycled content, and alternative fibers such as bamboo. The fiber composition of these products has a significant impact on their overall environmental footprint. For example, products made from virgin fiber can generate three times as many CO₂ emissions as products made from other types of pulp. 

Using recycled content in sanitary paper products results in lower greenhouse gas emissions because it eliminates the emissions associated with extracting and manufacturing virgin materials. Additionally, the collection and re-processing of recovered materials (paper products that have been diverted from waste streams) results in reduced carbon emissions across the product lifecycle. In particular, recovered materials have reduced carbon footprints because they preserve forests — which serve as carbon sinks — and divert materials from landfills where discarded products emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas. 

The market for recycled fiber has undergone dramatic changes in recent years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and impacts of the China Sword policy.  Due to these changes, Green Seal is evaluating possible revisions to the sustainability criteria in its GS-1 Standard for Sanitary Paper Products — including the highly stringent recycled fiber requirements — to ensure they align with market needs as well as new sustainability opportunities for the product category. Through this revision, Green Seal will also explore the potential for certification pathways for sustainably sourced alternative fibers (e.g., bamboo) and will assess whether different leadership criteria are needed for the household market versus the away-from-home market.

Green Seal’s Sanitary Paper Product Standard Revision

Green Seal’s reputation for credibility and market impact rests on an open and transparent process for developing our science-based criteria, following international best practices. Green Seal is actively working with stakeholders to develop draft criteria for public comment.

This revision will include the following:

• Evaluating the standard’s recycled content requirements based on the landscape of the recycled fiber market
• Exploring potential certification pathways for sustainably sourced alternative fibers, such as bamboo
• Evaluating leadership criteria for both the household and the away-from-home markets

Call for Working Group Applicants  

Green Seal is actively recruiting participants to serve on our Working Group for this sanitary paper products revision. Working Group members are volunteers from leading companies, nonprofit organizations, and independent subject matter experts, including paper manufacturers, experts in solid waste and recycling, and green procurement professionals. The participation and input of these stakeholders is critical to achieving a strong outcome: a meaningful, feasible environmental leadership standard. Working Group members serve as technical and market advisors throughout the standard development process, and program implementation and evolution.

Working Group members must meet all member requirements and agree to the principles in Green Seal’s Policies and Procedures for Working Group Members.

Green Seal is especially interested in Working Group members who have expertise in the following areas:

• Paper manufacturing
• Solid waste and recycling
• Carbon benefits of alternative fibers (e.g., bamboo)

Submission Instructions: Fill out the interest form.

Deadline for Application: Interested applicants should apply by September 29, 2023.

Timeline for Participation: October 2023 through March 2024. No travel will be required.