More than 1,500 organisations worldwide have now voluntarily removed or amended statements such as “Go Green – Go Paperless” as a campaign by environmental advocacy group Two Sides reaches another major milestone in its quest to stamp out misleading environmental claims about paper.
For more than a decade, the Two Sides Anti-Greenwash campaign has challenged misleading environmental claims that unfairly slander the environmental performance of paper communications and paper-based packaging.
From banks and utilities to retailers, insurers and public sector organisations, businesses have increasingly used environmental messaging to encourage their customers to switch to digital communications. While often presented as sustainability efforts, these messages frequently lack credible evidence and are primarily used to reduce operational costs rather than environmental impact.
It appears that consumers do not support nor want these forced digital switches. Data from the 2025 Two Sides Trend Tracker report shows that 56% of European consumers are aware that the environmental reasons given for moving to digital are dishonest and primarily motivated by cost reduction. Furthermore, 76% of consumers want the right to choose how they receive communications and oppose being forced into digital-only options.
While the Anti-Greenwash campaign initially focused on misleading claims encouraging consumers to abandon paper communications, the scope of the campaign has expanded alongside changing market trends.
Increasingly, Two Sides is seeing environmental claims relating to paper-based packaging, including unsupported statements suggesting that alternative fibre materials are inherently more sustainable than paper from responsibly managed forests, or that eliminating paper packaging automatically reduces environmental impact. As with all environmental claims, these statements should be supported by robust, independently verifiable evidence.
The print, paper and paper-based packaging sector has invested heavily in sustainable forestry, responsible manufacturing and recycling infrastructure, yet continues to be undermined by inaccurate claims suggesting that avoiding paper automatically benefits the environment.
These claims also carry a significant economic impact. Europe’s print, paper, packaging and forestry sectors support more than 640,000 jobs across 112,000 businesses. Research commissioned by Two Sides found that greenwashing could cost the European mailing and postal sector alone more than €337m annually through reduced paper volumes and declining consumer confidence.
Two Sides Europe managing director Jonathan Tame said: “The success of this campaign demonstrates that organisations are willing to listen when presented with credible evidence.
“Most businesses don’t deliberately set out to mislead consumers. However, environmental claims must be based on facts, not assumptions or marketing slogans. Suggesting that choosing digital automatically saves trees or is always the greener option oversimplifies a complex issue and risks undermining consumer trust.
“We’re also seeing more environmental marketing around packaging. Innovation is essential, and new materials have an important role to play, but claims that one fibre source is automatically more sustainable than another, or that eliminating paper packaging is always better for the environment, should be backed by credible lifecycle evidence. Consumers deserve accurate information, not misleading or over-simplified marketing messages.”
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