The EcoPaper Database is a free resource that helps users easily find paper and paper packaging products with high recycled content and/or non-wood agricultural residues and fibres.

This version of the EPD is the most rigorous yet. We removed many products with lower recycled content, preferring to focus on the large amount of available paper and packaging with 100% or other high-recycled content. This reduces the number of listings in the database slightly, but results in the EPD being populated with a higher quality of eco-products.

The EPD is based on category leadership. For example, there are so many 100% recycled copy papers, we did not include those with only 30% recycled content. And packaging grades need to have at least 50% recycled or Next Gen content to be included.

Other new features this year include:

• An expanded list of paper and packaging from India and China.
• A ‘Sector’ filter so you can filter products for specific market sectors.
• A scan for food contact safety compliance, such as FDA food compliance or relevant third-party verifications. We’ve added Food Safe verification to the front page filters.
• FSC-certified bamboo is now given Next Gen status.
• Proof of Recyclability certifications, where available, for Next Gen paper and packaging.

This year, we have introduced a download feature, so partners can download their searches. This means users can customize a segment to their needs and have handy research specific to their business readily available off-line. It also lets users compare and contrast all listings, and includes hyperlinks to products.

The database includes products manufactured in 40 countries, especially from North America, Europe, India, and China. It’s easy to search where to find them by using the expanded filter function located at the top right of the EPD table.

Many products are available globally, while others are only available close to where they are manufactured.

Categories of products in the EPD include:

• Packaging grades of all sorts, from shipping boxes to mailers to folding box board to luxury gift boxes.
• Food service ware, much of which is molded fibre made with non-wood fibres.
• Printing and writing grades, which include copy paper and publishing papers.
• Pulp — both non-wood and food-safe certified recycled pulp that can be used in a host of paper types.
• Sanitary products and specialty products such as labels.

The EPD can help your company easily locate high-recycled content and Next Gen paper and paper packaging grades. You may have heard from some suppliers that certain types of paper grades are not available with recycled content, so we’ve done the work for you to identify options that do.

The previous iteration of the EPD, released in 2022, had 1,169 listings; this 2025 version has 1,400 listings individual paper and paper packaging products from all around the world. Of these 531 of them are brand-new products that were not previously listed in the EPD.

With this update, we specifically looked to add non-wood products made in India and China.

There are 624 packaging listings, and 206 of these are new this year. With the much-needed shift away from plastic packaging, eco-conscious companies want to ensure that they are not swapping one environmental problem, that of plastic waste, for another, mass deforestation. Using paper packaging that maximizes the use of recycled and Next Gen inputs reduces the possibility of sourcing products with a high risk of Ancient and Endangered Forest fibres. Look for Superior Ranked products made from 100% recycled content or non-wood sources to remove your risk of sourcing from Ancient and Endangered Forests.

Next Generation or Next Gen products are paper or packaging made from non-wood agricultural residues and alternative fibres like waste left over after the grain harvest, food industry waste, dedicated crops (those that fix carbon in the soil and don’t compete with food crops), and other available feedstocks. These Next Gen products have the dual benefit of taking the sourcing pressure for paper products off forests, and reducing waste that is already in the system, that in many cases would otherwise be burned or landfilled.

A list of almost 70 types of non-wood alternative fibres can be sorted with the Non-Wood column header or by using the Non-Wood filter function.

This version of the EPD lists products made from everything from grape skins to seaweed by-product. It’s a list that goes from the expected (wheat straw and sugarcane bagasse) to the interesting (banana fibre, non-GMO sugar beet residue, miscanthus grass) to the wildly innovative (mushrooms, fallen leaves) to the downright surprising (elephant poo). Other fibre sources include other cereal straws, recycled textiles, hemp, flax, and food waste.

At a global level, about 11 million tonnes of paper and packaging is already made with Next Gen fibre. This EPD features a total of 461 Next Gen products; of these, 206 are new products, not previously listed.

• While it is impossible to guarantee that every Next Gen fibre product will out-perform every forest fibre product, due to a host of impacts beyond the ability of the EPD to track, it is critical to acknowledge the growing body of life cycle analysis (LCA) evidence that Next Gen fibres regularly outperform forest fibres in climate, water, and biodiversity impact categories.
• The benefits are most pronounced when comparing non-wood Next Gen fibres to wood fibre sourced from primary, intact, or old-growth forests — irreplaceable ecosystems that continue to be logged at alarming rates.
• Biogenic carbon accounting in LCAs demonstrates that the carbon lost at the time of logging in such forests is the most significant contributor to the overall product footprint, generating substantial carbon debts that are often under-reported in conventional LCAs.
• Coupled with the already threatened status of these forests, this adds compelling motivation to scale up investment in Next Gen fibres as part of a holistic sustainability solution.
• Please see Canopy’s Next Gen Benefits Brief for more details.

Urgency of reducing logging pressure

• The science is clear that the current scale of industrial logging (especially for short-lived products like paper packaging and textiles) is incompatible with global targets to protect nature and ensure a climate-safe future.
• To meaningfully enable long-term protection of climate and biodiversity-critical forests, companies need to adopt a diversified fibre strategy that incorporates Next Gen fibres, alongside increases in recycled content and reductions in overall material consumption.

When vetting papers for the EPD we look for products certified to a rigorous and robust third-party standard that verifies high recycled content (FSC Recycled, Green Seal, EcoLogo, Blue Angel, EU Ecolabel), FSC 100% for bamboo products or FSC Mix for papers with wood fibre. We recommend that all companies that have products made with non-wood agricultural wastes and fibres obtain RSB certification, in order to verify the sustainability of the feedstock sourcing.

We’ve heard many partners say their supplier told them there is no 100% recycled corrugated cardboard available, so we went looking. The EPD has 14 Superior ranked corrugated shipping box listings, 13 of which are 100% recycled.

PFAS stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a class of synthetic chemicals (also called ‘forever chemicals’) used as coating on some paper products, including grease-resistant food packaging, which are associated with a range of environmental risks. In some regions, PFAS are now banned, while in others, manufacturers don’t have to disclose the use of PFAS. Therefore, Canopy has done some due diligence for you. If we found food service ware or food contact products containing PFAS, we did not include them in the database, due to the number of national or state regulations being introduced to ban PFAS coating. Any products that could not be completely verified as PFAS-free are noted as such. Canopy recommends verifying with the manufacturer before purchasing.

Bleaching method is one of the criteria used in the EcoPaper Database to rank a product against The Paper Steps.

Here’s a quick guide to bleaching acronyms:

Processed Chlorine Free (PCF) applies to recovered paper fibre and means the recycled and de-inked paper fibres are whitened without using any chlorine. Since we value both forest conservation and reducing unnecessary chemical use, we advocate PCF as the most environmentally preferable bleach option.

Totally Chlorine Free (TCF) paper is also whitened without any chlorine bleaching, but can only apply to virgin fibre paper and not to recycled paper.

Enhanced Elemental Chlorine Free (EECF) bleaching substitutes ozone or hydrogen peroxide for chlorine or chlorine dioxides as a brightening agent in the initial stages of the bleaching process. This process is inferior to PCF and TCF because it uses chlorine dioxide in the final stages of bleaching. However, compared to the ECF process outlined below, this process is preferable because it further improves the quality of the wastewater and enables recovery of most mill wastewater. Enhanced ECF with extended or oxygen delignification removes more lignin from the wood before bleaching than the traditional ECF method. Therefore, fewer bleaching chemicals are required.

Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF) is a bleaching process that substitutes chlorine dioxide for elemental chlorine. Compared to elemental chlorine bleaching processes, ECF bleaching reduces the formation of many chlorinated organic compounds. However, it does not completely eliminate them.

We do not include products known to be made by mills that use elemental chlorine.

Bagasse residue is often used as a biomass fuel to power sugar mills. If the biomass diverted for pulp and paper manufacturing exceeds the mill’s energy requirements, fossil fuels are often used as a replacement. This issue is referred to in the industry as ‘fuel substitution’. It can negate the carbon benefits of using bagasse as a tree-free paper fibre. Canopy has sought to gain written verification from producers about their ‘Bagasse Management Details’. We have excluded products where fuel substitution is a known issue.