‘Fashionable’ toilet rolls making ‘dubious’ claims about being made from bamboo, Which? finds
Some “fashionable” toilet roll brands claiming to be made from sustainable bamboo actually contain very little and are instead using virgin wood, a new investigation suggests.
Which?, a website that researches consumer choices, tested one sample from each of five popular brands implying they are made from bamboo.
Bamboo is marketed as greener than regular paper made from virgin trees on the basis the grass grows so quickly and the process releases fewer greenhouse gases, which drive climate change.
Which? found samples from Bumboo, Naked Sprout and Bazoo contained just 2.7%, 4% and 26.1% bamboo-like grass fibres, respectively.
Bazoo says it makes “tree-free, 100% bamboo toilet paper” and Bumboo cites its “FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified and tested 100% bamboo from well-managed forests”.
Naked Sprout does not claim the product is made only from bamboo, but also does not specify that its bamboo range contains other materials.
Which? said supply chains are “complicated” but that the “onus is on brands” to audit them.
Emily Seymour, Which? sustainability editor, said: “If you’re making green claims about particular products, and you’re expecting customers to believe those claims, and to buy things on the basis of them, then it’s really on you as a company to make sure that your checks and balances are correct.”
She praised the “great” response from Bumboo, which, after being alerted to the issue by Which? in January, stepped up its testing.
Rob Ingram, CEO of Bumboo, told Sky News he was “devastated” to learn of Which?’s findings, and said the issue came from a paper mill in China that had sold it the wrong product.
“We immediately figured out what the problem was and fixed it because we only annual tested before… now we’re going to do it on every single batch, in order to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
According to consultancy firm McKinsey, COVID-19 lockdowns helped drive a shift to purchases of products from e-retailers, such as some of those tested by Which?.
It said in a 2021 report consumers are “increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of the products they buy”, including of tissue products.
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Which? had found that the tested toilet rolls comprised mostly less eco-friendly fast-growing virgin hardwoods – mostly eucalyptus with some acacia in Bazoo and Bumboo.
Acacia has been associated with damaging deforestation in places such as Indonesia, Which? said.
It tested two other brands, Who Gives a Crap (WGAC) and The Cheeky Panda, and found they contained 100% bamboo, as claimed.
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‘Disappointed’ response
The testing was carried out by an independent lab using an industry standard test known as TAPPI T 401.
The process breaks down a sample of paper to quantify and identify its components.
Naked Sprout said it is “incredibly disappointed by a recent Which? report that suggests our bamboo toilet paper contains a low percentage of bamboo”.
A spokesperson said: “Our entire supply chain (4 pulp suppliers and 1 manufacturer) is FSC certified… the most credible supply chain organisation worldwide. The FSC has stated that there have been no issues identified with any of our pulp suppliers. The FSC is undertaking further investigation to further verify this.
“TAPPI (Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry) admit that the current test has limitations and say that ‘considerable variation in the precision is to be expected’.”
They added: “Our products remain the most sustainable option on the market. Both our bamboo and recycled toilet papers have lower carbon footprints than any other eco or mainstream option. This is because the factory we use is powered by on-site renewable energy, our shipping and postage is as green as possible, and our packaging is plastic free and fully recyclable.”
They are about to start showing customers supply chain data, allowing them to see “exactly where our bamboo is grown, exactly how it comes to our factory, and exactly what goes into our products to produce their toilet paper”.
TAPPI said: “Of course, every testing method has limitations, and TAPPI/ANSI T 401 clearly outlines its limitations within the TM itself.
“We see no contradictions in the way Which? applied T 401, and it seems disingenuous to suggest that a TM applied successfully to other brands tested for this article would be inadequate for Naked Sprout.”
A spokesperson for Bazoo said: “Bazoo and our entire supply chain is vigorously audited by the Forest Stewardship Council, the leading supply chain certifier in our market, so we were incredibly disappointed to know that any of our rolls had been contaminated at source. We are in extensive communications with FSC to understand clearly where this error occurred.
“We truly are committed to delivering on our promise of 100% bamboo rolls and have taken every step in our power to understand the root of the problem and ensure we’re fully protected from any future contamination.
“This means stricter quality control measures, more frequent testing, and doing right by our customers that have received contaminated products.”
They said any customers affected by the contaminated batch have been contacted, adding: “As a UK start-up trying to make a difference we knew there would be bumps along the way.”
Octopus Energy Group, Britain’s largest residential gas and electricity supplier, is plotting a £10bn demerger of its technology arm that would reinforce its status as one of the country’s most valuable private companies.
Sky News can exclusively reveal that Octopus Energy is close to hiring investment bankers to help formally separate Kraken Technologies from the rest of the group.
The demerger, which would be expected to take place in the next 12 months, would see Octopus Energy’s existing investors given shares in the newly independent Kraken business.
A minority stake in Kraken of up to 20% is expected to be sold to external shareholders in order to help validate the technology platform’s valuation, according to insiders.
One banking source said that Kraken could be valued at as much as $14bn (£10.25bn) in a forthcoming demerger.
Citi, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are among the investment banks invited to pitch for the demerger mandate in recent weeks.
A deal will augment Octopus Energy chief executive Greg Jackson’s paper fortune, and underline his success at building a globally significant British-based company over the last decade.
Octopus Energy now has 7.5m retail customers in Britain, following its 2022 rescue of the collapsed energy supplier Bulb, and the subsequent acquisition of Shell’s home energy business.
In January, it announced that it had become the country’s biggest supplier – surpassing Centrica-owned British Gas – with a 24% market share.
It also has a further 2.5m customers outside the UK.
Kraken is an operating system licensed to other energy providers, water companies and telecoms suppliers. Pic: Octopus
Sources said a £10bn valuation of Kraken would now imply that the whole group, including the retail supply business, was worth in the region of £15bn or more.
That would be double its valuation of just over a year ago, when the company announced that it had secured new backing from funds Galvanize Climate Solutions and Lightrock.
Shortly before that, former US vice president Al Gore’s firm, Generation Investment Management, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board increased their stakes in Octopus Energy in a transaction valuing the company at $9bn (£7.2bn).
Kraken is an operating system which is licensed to other energy providers, water companies and telecoms suppliers.
It connects all parts of the energy system, including customer billing and the flexible management of renewable generation and energy devices such as heat pumps and electric vehicle batteries.
The business also unlocks smart grids which enable people to use more renewable energy when there is an abundant supply of it.
In the UK, its platform is licensed to Octopus Energy’s rivals EON and EDF Energy, as well as the water company Severn Trent and broadband provider Cuckoo.
Overseas, Kraken serves Origin Energy in Australia, Japan’s Tokyo Gas and Plentitude in countries including France and Greece.
Its biggest coup came recently, when it struck a deal with National Grid in the US to serve 6.5m customers in New York and Massachusetts.
Sources said other major licensing agreements in the US were expected to be struck in the coming months.
Kraken, which is chaired by Gavin Patterson, the former BT Group chief executive, is now contracted to more than 70m customer accounts globally – putting it easily on track to hit a target of 100m by 2027.
Earlier this year, Mr Jackson said that target now risked being seen as “embarrassingly unambitious”.
Last July, Kraken recruited Amir Orad, a former boss of NICE Actimize, a US-listed provider of enterprise software to global banks and Fortune 500 companies, as its first chief executive.
A demerger of Kraken will trigger speculation about an eventual public market listing of the business.
Its growth in the US, and the relative public market valuations of technology companies in New York and London, may put the UK at a disadvantage when Kraken eventually considers where to list.
One key advantage of demerging Kraken from the rest of Octopus Energy Group would be to remove the perception of a conflict of interest among potential customers of the technology platform.
A source said the unified corporate ownership of both businesses had acted as a deterrent to some energy suppliers.
Kraken has also diversified beyond the energy sector, and earlier this year joined a consortium which was exploring a takeover bid for stricken Thames Water.
This weekend, Octopus Energy declined to comment.
The boss of Ryanair has told Sky News the president of the European Commission should “quit” if she can’t stop disruption caused by repeated French air traffic control strikes.
Michael O’Leary, the group chief executive of Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers, said in an interview with Business Live that Ursula von der Leyen had failed to get to grips, at an EU level, with interruption to overflights following several recent disputes in France.
The latest action began on Thursday and is due to conclude later today, forcing thousands of flights to be delayed and cancelled through French airspace closures.
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Mr O’Leary told presenter Darren McCaffrey that French domestic flights were given priority during ATC strikes and other nations, including Italy and Greece, had solved the problem through minimum service legislation.
He claimed that the vast majority of flights, cancelled over two days of action that began on Thursday, would have been able to operate under similar rules.
Mr O’Leary said of the EU’s role: “We continue to call on Ursula von der Leyen – why are you not protecting these overflights, why is the single market for air travel being disrupted by a tiny number of French air traffic controllers?
Ryanair has cancelled more than 400 flights over two days due to the action in France. File pic: PA
“All we get is a shrug of their shoulders and ‘there’s nothing we can do’. We point out, there is.”
He added: “We are calling on Ursula von der Leyen, who preaches about competitiveness and reforming Europe, if you’re not willing to protect or fix overflights then quit and let somebody more effective do the job.”
The strike is estimated, by the Airlines for Europe lobby group to have led to at least 1,500 cancelled flights, leaving 300,000 travellers unable to make their journeys.
Michael O’Leary believes the EU can take action on competition grounds. Pic: PA
Ryanair itself had axed more than 400 flights so far, Mr O’Leary said. Rival easyJet said on Thursday that it had cancelled 274 services over the two days.
The beginning of July marks the start of the European summer holiday season.
The French civil aviation agency DGAC had already told airlines to cancel 40% of flights covering the three main Paris airports on Friday ahead of the walkout – a dispute over staffing levels and equipment quality.
Mr O’Leary described those safety issues as “nonsense” and said twhile the controllers had a right to strike, they did not have the right to close the sky.
DGAC has warned of delays and further severe disruption heading into the weekend.
Many planes and crews will be out of position.
Mr O’Leary is not alone in expressing his frustration.
The French transport minister Philippe Tabarot has denounced the action and the reasons for it.
“The idea is to disturb as many people as possible,” he said in an interview with CNews.
Passengers are being advised that if your flight is cancelled, the airline must either give you a refund or book you on an alternative flight.
If you have booked a return flight and the outbound leg is cancelled, you can claim the full cost of the return ticket back from your airline.
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