Stone paper, FSC cardboard, or recycled cardboard: which really has the lowest CO2?

We get this question weekly. Someone is comparing their shipping packaging and looking for honest figures. They don't want to hear what marketing says, they want to see the LCA data. We do that here, with sources and an honest comparison. Plus the conclusions that are not always in our favor, because no material is a winner in all scenarios.

What is an LCA and what does it (not) say?

LCA stands for Life Cycle Assessment. It is a methodology used to map the environmental impact of a product over its entire lifespan: from raw material extraction, through production, transport, use, to end-of-life. An LCA provides you with figures for CO2 emissions, water consumption, energy consumption, ecotoxicity, and more.

Important: an LCA concerns one scenario. If you change the number of reuse rounds, the transport, or the end-of-life, the figures change. That is why no LCA works as a universal truth. You always compare in context.

In this article, we look at one scenario: a shipping package used to get one parcel from A to B. We calculate per shipment, averaged over the entire lifespan of the material.

The three candidates

FSC cardboard, single-use. The industry standard. Wood pulp from sustainably managed forests, produced in European paper mills, after one use in the paper stream. Sometimes cardboard is reused 5 to 6 times as a delivery box by some consumers, but the average parcel shipment is discarded after unpacking.

Recycled cardboard, single-use. Similar to FSC in structure, but the pulp is made from old paper that has gone through the paper washing stream. Slightly less energy is needed in production, fibers can only be recycled 5 to 7 cycles before they become too short for paper. After that, it becomes insulation material or fuel.

Stone paper, reusable. Calcium carbonate plus recycled HDPE as a binder. Completely tree-free. Designed for 25 reuse rounds with BOXO deposit. Returned at end-of-life, ground, reprocessed into stone paper.

The figures per kg of material

For fairness: these are data from public LCA sources, averaged over European production. Different manufacturers have different figures, so allow for a margin of 10 to 20 percent.

Metric	FSC cardboard	Recycled cardboard	Stone paper
CO2 in production	1,300 g/kg	850 g/kg	432 g/kg
Water in production	50,000 L/ton	20,000 L/ton	30 L/ton
Energy in production	high (reference)	30 percent lower	85 percent lower
Tree usage	yes	recycled	no
Recyclable	5 to 7 cycles	5 to 7 cycles	unlimited grinding

Stone paper wins handsomely on water, energy, and tree usage. Stone paper also wins on CO2 in production, with 67 percent less emissions than FSC cardboard, but the gain is less spectacular than the other figures suggest.

The figures per shipment, that's what counts

The picture differs per kg. But you don't send kilograms, you send parcels. And then you have to include averages over the lifespan.

An average 90-gram Stonepacker box, reused 25 times, costs approximately 0.03 kg of CO2 per shipment. An average 200-gram FSC cardboard shipping box, used once, costs 0.42 kg of CO2 per shipment. Recycled cardboard is in between at approximately 0.18 kg per shipment.

In other words, per shipment, stone paper generates approximately 14 times less CO2 than single-use FSC cardboard, and 6 times less than recycled cardboard.

The caveat we don't forget to mention

The figures assume 25 reuse rounds. What if your Stonepacker only lasts 10 times? Or 5? Our internal data shows that the BOXO system averages 22 returns for boxes, and 28 for envelopes. That is higher than we conservatively calculate. But if your setup only keeps it in circulation 8 times, you end up with 0.12 kg of CO2 per shipment. Still 3.5 times better than FSC, but less absurd than the 14x in the optimal scenario.

Conversely: recycled cardboard is strong when you set up a closed loop for it, such as a deposit system for delivery boxes. Then the figures can be in the same range. We don't see this much in practice yet because deposits for disposable cardboard are not catching on in the Netherlands, but it is possible.

Which one to choose then

We are not objective, so take this with a grain of salt. But if you purely look at the average environmental impact per shipment in the Dutch market as of 2026, the order is:

Reusable stone paper > Recycled cardboard (closed loop) > Single-use recycled cardboard > Single-use FSC cardboard.

No one chooses one-to-one between these options. A typical webshop will have a mix. Our customers use Stonepacker for their primary shipping, and keep recycled cardboard for packing fillers and internal logistics.

What to do with these figures

Three things.

One, ask your supplier for their LCA. Not to show off, but to be able to compare. If someone sells "sustainable cardboard" without figures, you know enough.

Two, calculate it for your specific flow. How many shipments, what distance, what end-of-life. An LCA tool such as 2.0 LCA Consultants or MOYU's own calculator (available from us upon request) helps with this.

Three, don't let yourself be paralyzed. If you currently use single-use FSC cardboard, switching to recycled cardboard is already a big step. It doesn't have to be reusable stone paper right away. But if you are going to adjust a logistics flow anyway, choose the option that you will still consider best practice in 5 years.

Do you want to see our LCA figures for your use case? Request a sample and we will include the dossier. No sales pitch, just the data.