The industry’s structural transformation: urgent need for a level playing field. Toscotec’s second event reinforces Lucca as a global hub for dialogue on sustainability, digitalisation – and the future of the tissue industry.
Toscotec has announced the success of its Tissue Planet – Future Insights event, held in Lucca, Italy, between 13 – 14 May, which saw 300 international attendees contribute to discussions on the future of the tissue industry.
Presentations held at the city’s Real Collegio discussed how the sector is going through a structural transformation driven by changing demographics, geopolitics, imports, profitable decarbonisation, AI, energy cost pressures, and the urgent need for a level playing field.
Attendees from 40 companies and 25 countries attended the second edition of the event.
The Italian tissue machinery supplier said the aim of the event was to reduce the industry’s environmental footprint through shared ideas, case studies, and best practices, fostering direct collaboration between leading global tissue producers and the entire technology supply chain.
Acting as a facilitator by positioning itself as a partner for collaborations, Toscotec said: “The two-day event was an opportunity to engage with industry stakeholders and address shared challenges and reaffirm Toscotec’s role as a strategic partner in an increasingly green paper industry.
“The event was built on three core pillars: inspire, connect, and share, with a focus on networking and exchange of expertise.”
Alessandro Mennucci, Toscotec’s Chief Executive, said: “The event has solidified its position as a vital forum for discussing the future of our industry.
“We believe that the only way to tackle our current challenges and keep progressing is through effective collaboration and listening closely to market needs.”
Strategic talks and technical deep dives included:
Mariarosaria Taddeo, Professor of Digital Ethics and Defence Technologies at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford
Taddeo’s presentation ‘The mill and the model: rethinking industrial production in an age of intelligent systems’ discussed the ethical and philosophical perspective on Artificial Intelligence within the manufacturing sector. She highlighted machine learning, decision-making capabilities, ethics, and sustainability to guide leaders toward increasingly informed choices.
Carlos Reinoso, Chairman and Director General of the European Tissue Symposium (ETS)
The talk discussed the ETS’s latest independent socioeconomic impact analysis report, which highlights the scale and importance of Europe’s tissue industry. Drawing on data taken from across 42 European countries during 2024, the study measured the full economic footprint of Europe’s tissue industry, from sustainable fibre sourcing and local manufacturing to the hygiene and health benefits of its products.
It showed that the sector:
Supports over 421,000 jobs across Europe
Generates €19.7bn in annual revenue
Produces 8.2m tonnes of essential tissue products each year.
Panel discussion: Carlos Reinoso, Martin Krengel, Chairman of the Management Board at WEPA Group, Volker Zöller, President of Consumer Tissue Global at Essity, moderated by Marco Dell’Osso (MDG35 founder): highlighted the central role of the tissue sector as a strategic pillar for Europe, focusing on how the industry is investing to reduce its environmental footprint and withstand intense global market pressures.
Luigi Lazzareschi, Chief Executive of Sofidel
In his talk ‘Competing, yes, but on a level playing field: the new global challenges facing the European tissue industry’, Lazzareschi discussed the influx of imported products into Europe, highlighting the role of governance in managing market asymmetries, noting that the European tissue market is currently penalised by uneven regulatory standards across different countries, high energy costs, inflation, and instability. “Sharing the group’s firsthand experience and comparing the situation in the US and European growth markets, he emphasised that volatility is no longer an exception, but rather the “new normality” that businesses must navigate.
Nuno Santos, Executive Director of The Navigator Company
Pesented the company’s integrated sustainability model during his session, ‘Driving decarbonisation in tissue production’, highlighting how it has already achieved a 37% reduction in direct CO2 emissions as of 2025. In line with its target to reach carbon neutrality by 2040, the company continues to invest in renewable energy while emphasizing the need for competitive, low-carbon energy pricing. He also stressed the importance of industry-wide collaboration within the tissue sector.
Olli Härkönen, Supply Chain Sustainability and Digitalisation Director, Essity
During the “driving impact at scale: sustainability within Essity Global Supply Chain Enablement’, presented the company’s new Global Supply Chain Enablement function, which was established to embed sustainability into day-to-day operations and accelerate target delivery across the end-to-end value chain. Central to his presentation was the principle that “everyone has a role to play” a commitment that translates into strategic collaboration with suppliers to drive affordable and scalable innovation.
Steven Sage, Vice President of Sustainability and Corporate Communications at Kruger Products
Presented the company’s “Reimagine 2030” plan, highlighting milestones already achieved. These include a 31% reduction in emissions (against a 35% target), a 40% reduction in water intensity (with the target now raised to 45%), and successfully meeting its goal of 90% FSC-certified fibres.
Philipp Jaki, Tissue Economist, Fastmarkets
Sized up the rise in Asian imports. Here, TWM summarises his report.
Tissue market share by world region
Despite Asia Far East (ex-China, ex-Near and Middle East, ex-japan) accounted in 2025 for 42% of the world population. Its share in the global tissue consumption was only 16% in 2026.
Growing tissue penetration rates will be the main driver for China’s growing share (as population growth is already on the decline) in the world’s tissue consumption. Tissue consumption in America is slowing (in the next upcoming years) due to alternating economics in the region.
2025:
Global consumption 48.6m tonnes
- China 28%
- North America 22%
- Europe 20%
- Asia 16%
- Latin America 10%
- Africa 3%
- Oceania 1%
2040:
- China 32%
- North America 17%
- Europe 16%
- Asia 21%
- Latin America 10%
- Africa 3%
- Oceania 1%
Expected tissue volume growth
2025-2040:
- China 9.4m tonnes
- North America 1.3m tonnes
- Europe 1.2m tonnes
- Asia 6.9 tonnes
- Latin America 2.2m tonnes
- Africa 925,000 tonnes
- Oceania 160,000 tonnes
Despite a decreasing population, the tissue volume growth in China will outpace the other world regions. We saw in Asia (ex-China) accelerating tissue consumption growth due to increasing prosperity and sanitary infrastructure. While tissue consumption growth in North America is limited due to high per capita consumption, in Europe due to decreasing population. Per capita consumption depends on the frequency of tissue use, cultural habits, tissue quality and how important towelling tissue products are in each tissue market.
North and Latin America will maintain a sustainable population growth rate
China and Europe are predicted to see a negative population growth over the next 15 years. (China’s population number peaked in 2021 and has been decreasing; Europe’s population is projected to decrease from 2026 onwards). Until mid 2021, the cost gap between Asian and European producers was on average $90 per tonne. Since Q3 2021 the cost gap has increased to $286 on average in favour of Asian producers. The impact of higher natural gas prices was less severe for Asia than Europe. Asian tissue trade in 2025: 47%, or 1.6m tonnes of tissue exports stay within the Asian region, and 87% of the exports in Asia come from China and Indonesia
Global overcapacity is growing
The Covid pandemic changed the trajectory of capacity utilisation. Volume growth stopped increasing, which caused an increase in excess capacity. Especially, tissue producers in China continued to increase capacities as during the pandemic. Despite the massive capacity increases and stagnating consumption growth, capacity increases are planned in almost all regions.
When we compare the period between 2020-25, average tissue volume growth stagnated at around 1.4m tonnes annually. Before the pandemic, we had seen a gradual increase in average tissue volume growth. And my guess is that Chinese tissue producers continued their projects, believing to anticipate the trend of growing volume demand.
European tissue imports
Tissue imports increased by 60% compared to 2019. The Chinese tissue export volume increased by 119% compared to 2022. For the first time within a decade, Latin America supplied in 2025 relevant amounts of tissue to Europe. Türkiye is the largest import source of tissue in Europe, followed by China and Indonesia. It (Türkiye) was in 2025, with 371,000 the largest importer in Europe.
Energy consumption
46% of the global tissue capacity relies on natural gas. Europe and the Middle East have the highest exposure to natural gas.
The Asian tissue industry has a higher rate of vertical integrated tissue production, helping to reduce dependence on natural gas.
Natural gas price exposure in Europe
A cost increase of €25 per MWh would rise average costs per produced tonne to €23 on average. The Austrian, Belgian and Italian producers are the most impacted by rising natural gas prices.
Private label (PL) share in Western Europe
The PL share has risen in all categories since 2015. Consumers in Western Europe are getting more price sensitive. PL shares are especially high in countries where few supermarket retailers have a high market share. Improved PL products are also raising their demand.
European tissue demand growth
Tissue demand growth until 2020 was driven by a sharply increasing per capita consumption in Eastern Europe and slow but stable growth in western Europe. External shocks from the pandemic and energy price inflation weighed on European tissue consumption. The outlook for the upcoming years is subdued. Economic stagnation and war against Ukraine are halting growth rates. The war directly impacts tissue consumption, because Russia and Ukraine’s population has a large share of the Eastern European population. Indirectly, because energy price inflation is weighing on the rest of Europe.
Per capita consumption by region, 2025
With 26.6kg, North America is the most advanced tissue market. Japanese and Western European tissue consumption levels are around 17kg per capita. Per capita consumption in China grew in the last 10 years by 4.6kg. Asia Far East and Africa remain at a very low per capita consumption rate.
World population growth 2010-2025
At an early stage, tissue consumption growth is driven mostly by per capita growth. People in concentrated areas such as large cities or wealthy suburbs have better access to sanitary infrastructure and tissue paper. Increasing living standards through economic prosperity help people to access more tissue paper. Economic prosperity is also important in mature tissue markets. It helps at least maintain the consumption of higher-quality tissue that has, in general, a higher weight.
For Europe and the US population growth will be less important as a factor, as both regions see decelerating population growth. However, they still will see some growth in volume due to the slowly increasing per capita consumption.
