Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Since the 1990s, we have been conducting Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) to measure the environmental impact throughout the entire life cycle of the product. We develop smarter designs and reduce material use in products without affecting functionality or quality. By expanding our assortment with more reusable products, solutions and services that reduce volume consumption, such as absorbent underwear, hybrid diapers, and digital services like TENA SmartCare Change Indicator, we support sustainable consumption. Through continuous development and daily improvements, Essity has reduced the carbon footprint of the company’s different product offerings by up to 43% over a 15-year period in Europe. Essity’s Group target is that at least 50% of the company’s innovations are to yield social and/or environmental improvements. In 2023, the outcome was 85%.

Essity strives to use more materials with lower greenhouse gas emissions. The largest share of greenhouse gas emissions from purchased raw materials is from fresh fiber, recovered fibers and primary fossil-based plastic used in our products and packaging. We collaborate with our suppliers to develop sustainable products focusing on alternative, renewable and recycled materials and encourage them to establish their own climate targets and increase the use of renewable energy.

One of our most important tasks to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 is to become free from fossil fuels as our tissue manufacturing is an energy-intensive process. To accomplish this, measures include the increased use of low-carbon hydrogen, biomass, biogas, geothermal steam and solar power, and the electrification of our tissue processes. By completely replacing natural gas with biogas and shifting to certified renewable electricity, our Lilla Edet production facility in Sweden is reducing its fossil fuel CO2 emissions to zero during normal production. It is the world’s first large-scale tissue production facility with fossil CO2 emission-free production. In 2023, we also became the first company in the industry to produce tissue in a CO2 emission-free production process using renewable hydrogen at our production facility in Mainz-Kostheim, Germany.

Essity has extensive experience working with resource efficiency across the value chain, including its M-Save and E-Save programs focusing on material and energy efficiency in our production process. The reduction in greenhouse gas emissions per ton produced between 2005 and 2023 was 26%. During 2023, Essity focused on global sharing, implementing best practices and digital follow-up of our resource efficiency across our production facilities. We also made major investments in state-of-the-art technology, such as heat and fiber recovery, and improved process control and equipment.

Since 2021, Essity has been manufacturing tissue using pulp from wheat straw, and in 2022 we launched our first products containing wheat straw. Essity’s facility in Mannheim, Germany, is the world’s first facility in the tissue industry to use these agricultural by-products for large-scale production. We are also exploring future tissue technology to reduce resources such as water and energy used in our production.

Essity’s waste target is that all production waste will be subject to material and energy recovery by 2030. This will reduce the waste generated from Essity’s value chain, reduce the related greenhouse gas emissions, and contribute toward fulfilling our Scope 3 targets. In 2023, the total amount of production waste decreased, and 67% was recycled.

Within logistics we work with partners to focus on the shift to low-emission transportation options. We continue to reduce emissions in our transportation network by maximizing the load-fill, optimizing routes and transportation modes, and constantly introducing low- emission vehicles (multifuel vehicles using liquefied natural gas, electricity, and vegetable oil) from our service providers into our network. We are integrating sustainability into Essity’s global transportation model by adding emission factors as criteria for optimizing our load planning.

By integrating our principles of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, we can reduce waste from our products and packaging across the entire life cycle. Our approach is to reduce the impact of greenhouse gas emissions related to our suppliers, logistics partners, operations, customers, and consumers. Additionally, we are using the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework to identify and reduce the impact of climate change on Essity’s business.