The Good Roll opens sustainable bamboo pulp factory in Ghana

21-03-2025

The Good Roll opens sustainable bamboo pulp factory in Ghana

GNBCC member, the Good Roll has opened the first Fair Trade bamboo pulp factory in Ghana. Here, locally grown bamboo is processed into pulp, the basis for their sustainable and recycled toilet paper. Even before production officially started, the entire capacity was sold out.

In the factory, which fully complies with the ten Fair Trade principles, locally grown bamboo is converted into pulp, the basis for their sustainable and tree-friendly toilet paper. But this factory is more than just a production location; it is a symbol of positive change. The factory provides employment to one hundred and fifty local employees and provides a new stable income for more than a thousand farmers in Ghana.

Sander de Klerk , co-founder of The Good Roll, talks about the fair income source: 'In the past months, we have not only built the factory, but also invested in finding, harvesting and processing local bamboo. As a result, the first hundred tons of bamboo are already ready to be processed. But more importantly: we have been able to increase the income of the farmers by 30%. This has a huge impact on the lives of the farmers and their families.'

In Ghana, bamboo grows everywhere, but it is often seen as an 'unwanted weed' with no commercial value. The Good Roll changes this by processing local bamboo into pulp in the new factory. 'The choice for bamboo is not only based on the social impact we want to make, but also a conscious sustainable choice: bamboo grows forty times faster than trees, needs little water and stores up to 35% more CO2 than trees', says Sander.

During the start of production on Monday 17 March, a compressed bamboo pulp board rolled off the production line for the first time. The first twenty tonnes of pulp boards will soon be transported by container to factories in Spain, where the pulp will be further processed into toilet paper. 'This method is more sustainable and efficient: toilet rolls take up a lot of transport capacity, while pulp boards can be transported more compactly and in larger quantities. This significantly reduces our CO2 emissions', Sander continues.

The Good Roll's mission goes beyond rolling toilet rolls. In addition to reducing its ecological footprint and producing sustainable toilet paper, the company also focuses strongly on social impact. An important Fair Trade principle that The Good Roll adheres to is that 50% of net profits are invested in social and environmentally friendly projects. With these proceeds, The Good Roll builds toilets for people in Africa who currently do not have access to sanitary facilities.

Sander: '33% of the world's population does not have access to safe sanitation. That's about 2.3 billion people. This has enormous consequences for health, hygiene and quality of daily life.' With the sale of the 100% sustainable toilet rolls, The Good Roll has already financed more than 250 toilets and improved thousands of lives. 'Our ambition for the next five years is clear: we want to give 500,000 farmers a better life and provide five million people with sanitary facilities.'

To enable the construction of the factory, The Good Roll launched three bond rounds in 2024, raising a total of four million euros. The demand for their sustainable products is so high that the factory is already operating at maximum capacity. Therefore, a new production line will be added from 1 April 2025, increasing production capacity. A new financing round for this will start on 22 March 2025.

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