Celebrating our fantastic B Corp factory
It's not often that you'll see toilet roll companies (or many companies really) show off images of the places where their products are made. Factories are not super photogenic, and brands often prefer to showcase pictures of green trees and cute animals rather than the industrial nitty gritty.
If you've spent much time on our website, you'll know we take the opposite approach. Our home page, advertising, and social media channels all feature plenty of images and videos of a distinctive grey and green building set in the beautiful Catalan countryside.
This is our factory LC Paper, the manufacturing partner that helps us to make the UK’s most sustainable toilet rolls.
We're incredibly proud of our partnership with this ground-breaking tissue mill. And this summer we're celebrating, because they have increased their B Corp score from 99.4 to 123.
What does this mean, and how does our factory break from the norm? Let's take a trip to sunny Spain.
What is a B Corp?
B Corp, or Benefit Corporation, is a certification awarded by B Lab, a non-profit organisation that measures a company's whole social and environmental footprint. The B Corp community includes over 8,000 businesses worldwide, ranging from small start-ups to huge global enterprises, all united by a commitment to use their business as a force for good..
To become a B Corp, businesses are assessed on their impact, accountability, and transparency. The B Corp certification process looks at how a company's operations and business model impact its workers, community, environment, and customers. Companies are reassessed every three years to make sure they’re still committed and improving, and the result of this assessment is a score which summarises how well they’re doing.
Our score and our factory score
The passing score for a company applying for B Corp certification is 80. In our 2021 assessment Naked Sprout achieved a B Corp score of 128.4, the highest for any toilet brand in the UK. We are currently in the process of recertifying and we expect to go even higher!
Some other B Corp tissue brands selling in the UK are B Corps as well, but we often point out our rolls are a bit special because our factory “is a B Corp in its own right”
We point this out because it’s very unusual. Tissue brands selling in the UK do not generally own the factories where their tissue is made. Instead they buy toilet paper from independent factories and resell it. The toilet rolls either come to them as finished products, or as “parent reels,” huge rolls of toilet paper which can be cut down to make smaller rolls..
So for most UK-based toilet roll brands, the B Corp assessment takes into account their own working practices, the environmental footprint of their offices if they have them, how they package and advertise their goods, their corporate governance and charity partnerships, etc. The actual factories that make their tissue are considered as part of their supply chain, but the working practices and environmental footprint of these factories are not assessed in their own right.
The fact is, we simply don’t see a lot of information about how and where the rolls sold by most UK brands are made.
At Naked Sprout we can offer transparency, because as a B Corp, our factory opens themselves up to the same level of scrutiny that we do. And as proud partners of the fantastic team at LC Paper, we are over the moon to see them leap from a score of 99.4 to 123.
They were the first tissue factory in the world to achieve B Corp certification, and as of July 2024 they are one of only two (and they have the highest score by some distance). There are currently no B Corp tissue mills in the UK at all. Why is it so rare to find B Corp tissue makers?
The problems: challenges for B Corp tissue makers
Achieving B Corp certification is challenging for any business, but it poses unique difficulties for factories in general, and paper makers in particular.
Some big challenges are:
Environmental impact - Tissue factories generally power their processes with large amounts of energy and water, so they generate substantial CO2e emissions and waste water. To become a B Corp, they must show how they are working to minimise their environmental impact. This is not easily done if you’re making your pulp by adding harsh chemicals to water, or burning huge amounts of fossil fuels in your furnaces to dry your sheets.
Supply chain management - Making just about any product on an industrial scale means assembling parts from a lot of different sources. Even something simple like loo roll needs glue to bind the plys, ink for the boxes, cardboard cores, soaps to clean the pulp, etc etc. Ensuring that all of these suppliers adhere to ethical and sustainable practices is a lot of work.
Worker well-being - The well-being of factory workers can be at risk due to long hours, physically demanding work, exposure to hazardous materials and, sadly, low wages. B Corp certification requires factories to prioritise worker safety, pay them fairly, and offer benefits that enhance their quality of life.
The solutions: how our factory is different
Those are the problems, so what’s the best way to address them?
When it comes to environmental impact, LC Paper is ahead of the curve. Rather than setting CO2e reduction goals for 2030 or 2050 they are decarbonising their operations today, innovating new ways of making tissue without fossil fuels, using renewable energy that they generate onsite. They have even developed and patented a process to keep hot air circulating in their drying system, so that their furnaces don’t have to burn as much of that biomass fuel to provide the heat they need.
And they don’t just look at emissions. They produce our toilet rolls with no plastic and no harsh chemicals. This simple approach means their supply chain is less complex; raw materials, like FSC-certified bamboo pulp and recycled cardboard and kraft paper are turned into Naked Sprout toilet rolls with minimal chemical treatment and no bleach. Their processes are so clean that the water they use can be returned to the river with no degradation in key environmental markers.
This ambitious environmental program is overseen by general manager Pau Vila, a fifth-generation paper maker, and its success is a credit to the whole team. Recognising the importance of its workforce, LC Paper ensure everyone who works for them is paid at least a living wage, with fair working hours and holiday allowance.
Conclusion
Okay, we’ll stop gushing now! We hope you’ve enjoyed this view of our factory and what makes them different. We wanted to take the time to salute LC Paper’s B Corp status, and the spirit of continual improvement that has seen them recertify with a dramatically higher score.
It goes to show what can be achieved when manufacturers take a broad, long term view of their operations and the changes they can make right now, today. By addressing the specific challenges that come with making paper, and finding smart solutions, LC Paper provides a benchmark for paper and tissue makers all over the world.
Want to try the tissue products made by this remarkable team?
