The Myth of “Sustainable” Paper
In the midst of a worsening global forest crisis, the idea of “sustainable” paper production rings increasingly hollow. According to the Forest Declaration Assessment 2025 (forestdeclaration.org/assessment/), deforestation and forest degradation continue at catastrophic rates, undermining climate goals and devastating biodiversity.
Against this backdrop, the notion that forests should continue to serve primarily as sources of raw material for human industries is not just untenable—it is sickening. To imagine that trees exist for pulp and profit rather than as vital ecosystems is to perpetuate the very logic driving ecological collapse.
Paper labeled “sustainable” cannot be divorced from the industrial machinery that consumes forests faster than they can regenerate. Greenwashing cannot disguise the violence embedded in extraction.
If there is to be any integrity in the term sustainability, it must begin with restraint, not rebranding. We must question not only how paper is produced, but why so much of it is produced at all.
Forests are not resources; they are realities older and more essential than any economy. To treat them otherwise is to participate in their destruction.