Essity Aktiebolag (publ)
Essity
Essity is a global, leading hygiene and health company with the purpose to break barriers to well-being.
ID: 811973020584-68
Lobbying Activity
Meeting with Michael Hager (Cabinet of Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis)
16 Dec 2025 · Simplification
Meeting with Andreas Glück (Member of the European Parliament)
9 Dec 2025 · Public Procurement
Meeting with Majdouline Sbai (Member of the European Parliament)
18 Nov 2025 · Women health
Response to Circular Economy Act
6 Nov 2025
Essity is a leading global hygiene and health company touching the lives of 1 billion people every day. Europe is one of our primary markets for developing, producing, and distributing our products such as tissue paper products, absorbent hygiene products e.g. incontinence products, menstrual products, baby diapers as well as wound care products and other medical solutions. We have more than 30 production sites in Europe and about 18 000 employees. Hence, we welcome the ambition of the EU legislators to embed the upcoming Circular Economy Act (CEA) in the EUs competitiveness and industrial agenda. Industry needs to play a key role in the circularity transition. This requires the timely and harmonised implementation of existing rules and coherence with existing EU priorities, particularly the Clean Industrial Deal, the Competitiveness Compass, the Bioeconomy Strategy, the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) and the Public Procurement Directive. For the CEA to fully deliver on its ambitions, it should consider the following key aspects: Policy initiatives under CEA must be product-specific The CEA should recognize opportunities and challenges across different product categories to ensure the needed effective implementation. Product-specific rules need to apply. If approached in a too narrow way, mandatory measures e.g. on recycled content or reusability could undermine sustainability innovations & goals, health and safety requirements for sensitive applications in food or health care products, consumer trust, affordability as well as resilience. Effective waste collection, handling, and management are crucial. Focus should be on achievable objectives that are within grasp, if legal and regulatory barriers are removed, and not measures that risk being unimplementable. For example, the availability of recycled fibre decreases year after year, due to less newsprint paper and lack of new paper categories . However there is a potential in all paper products that can be recycled multiple times. Hence, they need to be collected, sorted and then recycled, and stronger policy incentives are needed to accelerate implementation of existing waste policy e.g. landfill should be banned by 2030. Strengthening the Single Market and EUs global competitiveness There is an opportunity to boost EUs competitiveness and foster favourable market conditions. The CEA must therefore deliver harmonisation of policy application across Member States, investment incentives and practical tools for industry to scale circular solutions competitively against realistic time frames. To sum up, Essity calls for a pragmatic, evidence-based approachrooted in product-specific rules, effective waste management and a strong Single Market. Policy measures linked to products, such as recycled content targets, must be sector- and use-specific, and should be assessed carefully. All levels of the waste hierarchy - including recycling, composting and incineration with energy recovery must remain available to drive circularity with the best environmental and socio-economic outcome. Finally, CEA should avoid double-regulation and potentially contradictory product requirements. We remain committed to drive the circularity agenda and remain available to share further information as input to the drafting process.
Read full responseMeeting with Stella Kaltsouni (Cabinet of Commissioner Dan Jørgensen) and Confederation of European Paper Industries and
6 Nov 2025 · Decarbonisation and maintaining global competitiveness
Meeting with Laurence Farreng (Member of the European Parliament)
22 Oct 2025 · Education à l'hygiène et défis du secteur de l'hygiène
Meeting with Pascal Arimont (Member of the European Parliament)
24 Mar 2025 · Sustainability legislation
Meeting with Arba Kokalari (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)
18 Mar 2025 · Green Claims Directive
Meeting with Jessica Polfjärd (Member of the European Parliament)
11 Mar 2025 · Climate policy
Meeting with Cecile Billaux (Head of Unit Directorate-General for International Partnerships)
26 Feb 2025 · Exchange of views on the state of Play of initiatives to support the vaccines and health manufacturing ecosystem in Africa.
Meeting with Luis Planas Herrera (Cabinet of Commissioner Jessika Roswall)
24 Feb 2025 · Circular economy
Meeting with Niels Flemming Hansen (Member of the European Parliament)
20 Nov 2024 · Priorities for the mandate
Meeting with Jessica Polfjärd (Member of the European Parliament)
9 Oct 2024 · Green policy
Meeting with Arba Kokalari (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)
12 Dec 2023 · Green Claims (staff level)
Response to Waste Framework review to reduce waste and the environmental impact of waste management
21 Nov 2023
Essity is a leading global hygiene and health company with sales in approximately 150 countries and about 48,000 employees (about 1/3 in the EU). Essity breaks barriers to well-being and contributes to a healthy, sustainable, and circular society. We are supportive of the Commissions approach to focus on textile and food waste for the Waste Framework Directives (WFD) revision, with a specific aim to bring about a more circular and sustainable management of textile waste, in line with the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles. Below we have set out our views on the revision proposal containing both some specific comments regarding the proposed scope as well as more general comments to be taken into consideration in the current revision. Annex IVc of the proposal contains the proposed scope of CN codes for textile products that should be covered. We think it is very important to ensure that washable/re-usable hygiene products such as for example washable intimate care products or washable diapers are not included in the scope of the revised WFD. These circular products aim to increase the re-use of hygiene products that are predominantly single-use today. Imposing the same EU EPR requirements on these type of product as on regular textile products such as for example clothing would risk harming the further development of this nascent product type aiming to making health and hygiene product progressively more circular. Therefore, we believe that Annex IVc should exclude the CN codes applicable to washable/re-usable hygiene products such as washable intimate care products listed in CN chapter 61. Furthermore, we believe that robust waste management policy frameworks such as the WFD are crucially important to bring about a more circular economy where turning waste into resources is recognized as a cornerstone of waste reduction and prevention. Any waste policy measure/framework should also be coherent with existing policy requirements on consumer protection, safety, hygiene, health, and environmental concerns, and must look at the full product lifecycle. The WFD outlines that both the environmental impact of products throughout their life cycle and the waste hierarchy need to be considered when taking the appropriate measures to reduce the environmental impact of products and the generation of waste. In its call for evidence for an Impact Assessment in 2022, the Commission notified its intention to optimise the efficiency of waste management systems, improve separate waste collection ensuring cleaner secondary raw materials, including by avoiding contamination of recyclable waste, support higher recycling rates and high-quality recycling and to halve the amount of residual (non-recycled) municipal waste by 2030. From our perspective, it is essential to find workable solutions to reduce, reuse and recycle waste from used hygiene and health products going forward. The adoption of more sustainable models needs legislation to support and embed innovation. Policy requirements need to drive investments into high constant quality and affordable secondary raw material. These aspects should be an integral part of any waste system. We look forward to the continued dialogue with the Commission and engage together on this common challenge and opportunities in the future. Attached you find our complete response. Kind regards Sofia Krigsman and Joost Koomen, Essity
Read full responseResponse to Environmental claims based on environmental footprint methods
19 Jul 2023
Essity aspires to be the undisputed global leader in hygiene and health. With headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, sales are conducted in approximately 150 countries under the leading global brands TENA and Tork, and under other strong brands, such as Actimove, JOBST, Knix, Leukoplast, Libero, Libresse, Lotus, Nosotras, Saba, Tempo, TOM Organic, Vinda and Zewa. Essity breaks barriers to well-being and contributes to a healthy, sustainable, and circular society. We welcome the European Green Deal and we have set an ambitious target to reach net zero by 2050 latest. In everything we do, we have the needs of our consumers, patients, care givers, and customers in mind and at heart. We are committed to social and environmental sustainability and constantly challenge ourselves to evolve. We develop, supply, and sell products and solutions that enable superior hygiene and health outcomes and experiences at home as well as away from home. We do this by supporting the effectiveness and efficiency of hygiene and health routines as well as by preventing, treating, and monitoring health conditions. Essity agrees with the European Commission (EC) that, at present, many product related claims are not properly substantiated and mislead the consumer in making more sustainable choices. If claims about environmental performance used on the internal market would be based on Life Cycle Assessments (LCA), greenwashing would effectively be countered. Essity has a long tradition of conducting LCAs and it helps Essity to monitor the environmental performance of its innovations, and to constantly improve and communicate our efforts with consumers. This includes resource efficiency from suppliers and from our own production, superior materials, as well as smarter product design for better post-consumer use. Essity is working with industry associations CEPI, AIM and EDANA when it comes to the EC:s proposal on Green Claims. We therefore refer to their responses in the consultation and would only like to underline the following points: - In order for any ex-ante assessment and third party verification process to promote the green transition and not cause an unproportionate administrative and financial burden on Member States and operators or unnecessary delays, specific/individual claims should not be subject to ex-ante third party verification. - We are supporting the ECs proposal not to limit the use of substantiating claims to a specific method, e.g., the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) method. - We welcome the need of harmonized consumer information and the possibility to use hybrid solutions e.g., combining on-pack information with digital information. Essity develops its business model to help consumers make more sustainable choices. Our products and services will be designed to promote sustainable consumption and behaviors, where everything is used, and less is wasted. The initiatives following the Circular Economy Action Plan must take into account the long-term socio-economic benefits of products and services and specifically for the hygiene, personal health and care sectors, since they have an essential role in preventing diseases and infections as well as ensuring well-being for European citizens; allowing high-level hygiene everywhere in the EU; and fostering the health, independence and well-being of people. This requires embracing a life-cycle approach, where environmental performance is assessed throughout the entire life cycle and where the role and the functionality of packaging and products are considered. Learning from the on-going implementation of the Single Use Plastics Directive implementation guidance needs to be clear and harmonized during the implementation process. We look forward to continued dialogue and to engage together on this common challenge and the opportunities in the future. Sofia Krigsman, Public Affairs Director EU sofia.krigsman@essity.com
Read full responseMeeting with Arba Kokalari (Member of the European Parliament)
14 Mar 2023 · Sustainability
Meeting with Peter Liese (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur) and BUSINESSEUROPE and
20 Dec 2022 · ETS
Response to Empowering the consumer for the green transition
29 May 2022
Essity is a leading global hygiene and health company with sales in approximately 150 countries and about 46,000 employees (about 1/3rd in the EU). Through our continued efforts to make more from less, increase circularity and well-being we help customers and consumers make more sustainable choices. We work to create well-being and health for consumers and customers while reducing the environmental footprint for our products and services. Essity is overall positive to the European Commission’s proposal for a Directive on empowering consumers for the green transition, but recommends that the Commission that considers the aspects outlined below.
Essity welcomes the proposal of new rules for environmental claims and sustainability labels. The introduction of a ban on generic environmental claims and sustainability labels that are not established by public authorities or verified through a third-party verification can be an efficient way of putting an end to unfair commercial practices that prevent sustainable purchases. However, the proposal should be aligned with existing standards for environmental claims and sustainability labels, and if a claim is made in accordance with International Standards (ISO 14020 series) that should also be approved. As a global company we are closely working and aligning with the ISO-standards and believe that they should be used as a basis for environmental claims and their requirements when available, and be recognised as a valid method to make claims. This would raise the bar for making claims and empower the consumer in the green transition.
We further agree with the Commission that commercial communication can mislead the consumers. However, it is important that brands are allowed to protect brand recognition and express their products’ characteristics and performance in a creative, understandable, and consumer-friendly way. The labels and messages must be easy to understand and create consumer awareness, meaning that long and complex texts should be avoided and proposed labels should be tested to improve under consumers understanding of them. To empower the consumer in the green transition, information about the claim should be displayed in clear and prominent terms on the same medium or through digital means such as the digital product passport. This will give more information and power to the consumer, whilst at the same time safeguard the creativity and innovation for brand owners.
Essity also calls for a clarification of some of the proposed concepts in the proposal. Firstly the definition of excellent environmental performance and what this implies for different products/categories needs to be further clarified, secondly we are missing a definition of what an independent monitoring system implies and what is required of such system, and lastly we find the concept of commercial common practices within the relevant market vague.
We support the provision of products’ life-cycle environmental and climate footprint to help consumers make sustainable choices. Essity has a long tradition conducting life cycle assessments (LCA) and is positive to use a Life Cycle Perspective when assessing the environmental impact from products and services. Essity supports the proposed requirement to provide information on product comparison methods, but we underline that such comparison needs to account for size, function, capacity, etc.
We look forward to the continued dialogue with the Commission and engage together on this common challenge and opportunities in the future.
Read full responseResponse to Proposal for a Council Recommendation on long-term care
29 Mar 2022
Essity is a leading global hygiene and health company with sales in approximately 150 countries and about 46,000 employees (about 1/3rd in the EU). Our products and services support individuals’ hygiene and health through their lives and contribute to protect health care workers. We welcome the European Commission’s initiative to strengthen access to high quality care for Europeans in all stages of life.
Essity believes it is important that the long-term care strategy focuses on preventive policies and actions to improve conditions in care homes. Cleaning in long term care is crucial for reducing infections. The pandemic has made it evident that long term care systems have major flaws in infection prevention, education and lack of hygiene and personal protective equipment (PPE) products. Essity recommends:
1. Improved infection prevention and control: This includes to secure availability of hygiene and PPE products in care homes, easy to use hygiene systems, training and education for staff to secure adherence to hand hygiene guidelines and minimize healthcare associated infections, and digital apps and services to support good hand hygiene.
2. Improved cleaning: Reducing healthcare associated infections in care homes can save lives. Introducing digitalized real-time cleaning services save cleaning staff time and efforts and improve cleaning quality. An example is Tork Vision Cleaning that helps cleaners to identify when and where cleaning is needed, reducing redundant tasks like dispenser checks and improves staff satisfaction.
The strategy should include recommendations for people needing care for conditions such as incontinence. Incontinence is classified by the WHO as a set of diseases, but is still a condition with a stigma. It is often a chronic condition, and most people rely on toileting and absorbent products to manage it. However, the ability to manage the condition can become difficult at older age due to e.g., immobility, poor eyesight or cognition and lowers quality of life if not well supported.
Supporting persons with incontinence requires a person-centred approach, which also ensures more efficient resource use and less environmental impact. Digital Health Technology (DTH) helps to address this need and can improve the outcome for persons with the condition, their care givers, care providers and the society at large, creating a shared value. Read more in the attached and linked Essity report Shared value: Self-management of incontinence. Several DTH solutions supporting continence care are available and further developed. TENA Identifi, an assessment solution, saves costs and improves life quality by creating person-centred toileting assistance schemes and recommending the right absorbent product. The TENA SmartCare change indicator is another example supporting care givers when the person they care for can’t reliably express their needs to have their absorbent pad changed.
It is important at an early stage of life to learn and practice hygiene routines. Many young children close together is challenging from a hygiene perspective and improved hand hygiene and other protocols are necessary. Essity also calls for strengthening infection control in childcare to minimize antibiotics use and keep children, staff, and parents healthy, hence recommending:
• Educating not only staff and parents but also children in hand hygiene improves hygiene levels and lowers staff turnover. Digital tools like educational and hand hygiene apps for children help them understand when, how and why to wash their hands.
• Improved cleaning routines are necessary to keep childcare facilities hygienic.
• Having the right hygiene and cleaning products available e.g., hygiene dispensers at the right height so children can wash their hands on their own and save staff time.
Essity breaks barriers to well-being and contributes to a healthy, sustainable, and circular society. We look forward to further support with our expertise and knowledge.
Read full responseResponse to Waste Framework review to reduce waste and the environmental impact of waste management
22 Feb 2022
Essity is a leading global hygiene and health company with sales society in approximately 150 countries and about 46,000 employees (about 1/3rd in the EU). Essity breaks barriers to well-being and contributes to a healthy, sustainable, and circular. We welcome the European Green Deal and we have set an ambitious target to reach net zero by 2050 latest. In addition, we have a large number of ambitious actions, plans and targets in order to continue to decrease our environmental footprint and at the same time continue to provide hygiene and health solutions to 100 of million people every day. We continuously innovate to find more sustainable solutions and measure and report on how our solutions deliver on sustainability.
Essity welcomes the objective of the initiative and see that as a provider of hygiene and health products we have a role to play. We welcome and support continued efforts to secure well-functioning waste systems, including initiatives and incentives to find large scale recycle solution of personal care products. Also, initiatives pushing for more functional markets for secondary raw material (SRM) are important. Our efforts are both individual and in collaboration with other actors such as governments, authorities, customers, peers and NGOs. E.g. together with our customers, facility managers and waste handlers we developed a circular service, Tork PaperCircle®, where used paper hand towels are recycled. The service both lowers the emissions for our customers with up to 40 percent, reduces waste and increases the availability of SRM to be used in our tissue production.
Many of our products are made by renewable and recycled materials. However, hygiene and health products e.g., incontinence pads, baby diapers and menstrual products are often used only ones. This is due to high safety and hygiene requirements as well as the need of easy handling of the used products containing body fluids. Equally important is that the product is well functioning e.g., hindering leakage or wet skin. These products have an important role to play. A product’s functionality will support both the individual to improve quality of life e.g., avoiding skin damages and avoid uncertainty if the product will leak or not, as well as support from a societal perspective preventing costs for unnecessary treatments of skin damage or other consequences of people not taking part in society due to leakages, shame etc. It is essential that the alternative to a single use product fulfills the following criteria before considered:
• That the product is safe and functional during use
• Product design is facilitating handling of product at home or in a professional environment
• Less environmental impact than the current alternative measured with LCA
Hygiene and health solutions are essential for saving lives and providing well-being and often the users otherwise have challenges to participate fully in society – given their condition. We would therefore like to stress that the introduction of new policy instruments needs to be preceded by careful analyses that consider factors such as distributional policy and demographic effects (e.g., gender and age) and the role that products play in important areas of society (e.g., in health, elderly and social care). There also needs to be an assessment of carbon and waste leakage when consumers are steered for economic reasons towards choosing lower quality products produced with a more negative sustainability footprint than products made in Europe.
Potential policy measures introduced in the review of the Waste Framework Directive should be coherent with existing policy requirements on consumer protection, safety, hygiene, health, and environmental concerns, and must look at the full product lifecycle. Essity is eager to support with our expertise and knowledge. It is essential to find workable solutions for reuse, reduce and recycle waste from used hygiene and health products.
Read full responseResponse to Policy framework on biobased, biodegradable and compostable plastics
27 Oct 2021
Essity is a leading global hygiene and health company with sales in approximately 150 countries and about 46,000 employees. Essity breaks barriers to well-being and contributes to a healthy, sustainable, and circular society. We welcome the European Green Deal (EGD) and the Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP). Essity share the European Commissions (EC) ambition in the Roadmap and sees the need to establishing clear definitions and overarching principles applying to both BBP and BDCP considering the circular economy and waste hierarchy principles. If no central EU policy is defined for these materials, there is a risk that different member states may promote different material solution. Essity welcomes the objective of the policy to protect a well-functioning single market in the EU.
There is already a group of recently developed horizontal CEN standards on biobased products including biobased plastics, be it non-biodegradable or biodegradable and compostable biobased plastics, to build on (see https://www.nen.nl/media/PDF/IG_Biobased_product.pdf). The CEN standards developed in CEN TC 411 cover the following areas: terminology for biobased products, sampling, biobased content, claims and communication around bio-based products and materials, application of and correlation towards LCA and sustainability of biomass used, and guidance on the use of existing standards for the end-of-life options. The development with these standards – where Essity supported the work - took many years and involved e.g., industry, NGOs, and certification bodies. It would be valuable if the standards could be referenced and used as a base for this policy framework. However, we lack harmonization around similar aspects for mass-balanced materials. This is important to include since it can be one tool to facilitate for the industry’s ambition to replace fossil plastic with current infrastructure.
For biobased plastics the EC aims to define or clarify what is the actual content of Biomass (“biobased content”). Here it is important to use what is already defined in the CEN biobased standards package, but also add definitions on how to communicate around mass-balanced materials.
For compostable plastics (BDCP) EC suggest 1) better methods to assess degradation in different environments (i.e., ocean etc..) 2) recommend the use of BDCP only for “limited” applications where recycling or reuse is not feasible. This is supported by Essity.
We share the EC: s view that the full life-cycle environmental impacts need to be considered including land use changes, biodiversity & climate impacts, and littering. However, the EC needs to consider and align with the work with the criteria in the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF).
It is important that the EC highlights concern regarding contamination of conventional plastics by compostable one, since there is an urgent need to increase the recycling rates of plastic packaging. It is important to have clean recycling streams to have high constant quality of recycled plastic at affordable price. Better packaging material should be enabled and facilitated through collaborations, such as the ones developed by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) and RecyClass. By 2025 Essity aim to achieve that all our packaging is recyclable and at least 85 percent renewable or recycled materials in our packaging whereof 25 percent is recycled plastics. We also explore to use more renewable materials for our products now and in the future and we hope for a development with increased availability of biobased materials.
Finally, Essity agrees with the EC that the circular economy and waste hierarchy principles would suggest using BDCP only for limited specific applications for which reduction, reuse and recycling are not feasible or desirable. Essity has been conducting LCA: s for decades and from our perspective we see limited benefits for using BDCP in hygiene and health products or packaging.
Looking forward to future dialogue.
Read full responseMeeting with Christiane Canenbley (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager), Michele Piergiovanni (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager) and
25 Jan 2021 · Commission’s priorities for digital and industrial policy in 2021