Collaboration & Co-Creation Materials & Packaging

Ahead of Black Friday, Brands Join Fight Against Paper Packaging Problem

22 more brands have joined Canopy’s Pack4Good campaign to greatly reduce the three billion trees cut down every year for paper packaging.

Published 3 years ago | About a 2 minute read

Image: Canopy

Three days before Black Friday — the second-largest shopping day around the world, at least for now — 22 brands, including beauty brands Lush Cosmetics (North America), Beauty Kitchen and LOLI; fashion brands Stitch Fix, The Very Group and Saloni; and printers Hemlock and Re-Leaf have joined environmental nonprofit Canopy’s Pack4Good initiative. The campaign is focused on tackling the extensive impact paper packaging — for which three billion trees are currently cut down every year — is having on the world’s forests, biodiversity and climate.

With today’s announcement, 126 brands – including previous partners such as BESTSELLER, H&M, prAna, Stella McCartney, Ted Baker and Mara Hoffman — are now working with Canopy to develop holistic packaging solutions to reduce waste and keep forests standing. The boost to the campaign comes as this year’s online sales are expected to increase 25 to 35 percent this holiday season.

“There’s no longer any need to use the last of the world’s ancient and endangered forests to ship and wrap everyday products,” stated Nicole Rycroft, Executive Director of Canopy. “In this turn-around decade for our planet, the companies that are joining Pack4Good are demonstrating the leadership that must be taken to tackle paper packaging and scale up low-impact alternatives. What better time to strengthen this movement, than on the eve of one of the world’s busiest shopping days.”

In January, Canopy released a landmark report that outlines a plan to save the world’s forests — and help avert a climate crisis — by removing 50 percent of the forest fiber from pulp manufacturing, and replacing it with next-generation alternative fibers such as agricultural residues and waste cotton textiles. According to the report, doing so will enable 30 percent of the world’s forests to be conserved by 2030.

All Pack4Good partners are committed to ensuring that by the end of 2022, all of their packaging is:

Free of ancient and endangered forests.
Designed to reduce material use.
Maximizing recycled and alternative next-generation fibers (such as agricultural residues).
Using FSC-certified wood when virgin forest fiber continues to be used.

Last year, Black Friday sales saw over 93.2 million people shopping online, which resulted in an all-time record $7.4 billion in sales — and thanks to the COVID crisis this year, those numbers could be even bigger. The additional packaging needed to meet this demand would come at a high cost to the world’s climate-rich forest ecosystems — as e-commerce shopping requires, on average, seven times more packaging.