Paper is made from trees harvested from sustainably managed forests which are a renewable, natural resource. A healthy market for forest products, such as paper receipts, helps promote the long-term sustainable management of forests.

Concerns have been raised over the environmental impacts of paper receipts, including greenhouse gases emitted and the amount of water consumed in the manufacturing process. All products and industries have an environmental impact but a look at the facts shows that paper can be a sustainable and environmentally-sound choice.

Information and communication technology (ICT) products and services are consuming a growing amount of the world’s energy, requiring an increasing amount of non-renewable raw materials (including rare earth metals) and producing a vast amount of e-waste.

For customers and businesses, a receipt is proof of purchase. For the customer, it can enable refunds or reflect the agreed-upon cost of a transaction. For a business, a receipt proves that the customer authorized a transaction. Legislation has recently been introduced in California that will require businesses to provide electronic receipts by default unless a customer requests a paper one. But is this what customers want?

Paper receipts are made from cellulose fibre, a natural, recyclable material that originally comes from sustainably managed forests in many regions of the world. To sustain the global fibre papermaking cycle and the many different paper grades produced, both recycled fibre and wood fibre from sustainably managed forests are essential.

Overall, paper receipts represent a very low risk to human health due to low quantities of chemicals present in the paper. Thermal papers must also meet all country-specific legislation on chemical composition.