treegan

treegan /ˈtriː.ɡən/ noun · a person who has stopped sending trees to the paper mill.

Paper that lets the forest stand.

Treegans write, print and wrap on hemp paper instead of wood pulp. Hemp grows back in a season. Forests take generations, and they hold most of the wildlife on land. We would rather leave them standing.

Take the pledge See the numbers

20–30+ yearsa pulpwood tree

90–120 daysa hemp crop

Each ring is a year a tree spent growing before the mill. Hemp is planted in spring and cut the same summer.

Why forests

Most life on land lives in a forest.

Regenerating the planet starts with leaving its richest habitat intact. Paper is one of the few big uses of wood that already has a fast-growing alternative.

80%

of amphibian species, 75% of bird species and 68% of mammal species find habitat in forests.1

~24

trees go into one tonne of virgin office paper made by chemical pulping.2

190M

tonnes of pulp were produced for paper worldwide in 2024, almost all of it from wood.3

Why hemp

A paper crop you can grow every year.

One season, not one generation

Hemp reaches harvest in 90 to 120 days. On the prairies that is one crop a year from the same field, with the land free for rotation after.4

More paper per acre

Estimates put hemp at roughly two to four times the paper fibre per acre of managed timberland each year. The classic figure of four times dates to a 1916 USDA study, so we use the modern range.4, 5

Gentler pulping

Hemp holds about 57% cellulose and less lignin than wood, so there is less binding material to strip out with harsh chemistry before it becomes paper.4, 6

Food for bees

Cornell researchers counted 16 bee species visiting hemp fields in New York. Hemp sheds heavy pollen in late summer, when farmland has few flowers left.7

How hemp regenerates

Hemp puts strength back into recycled paper.

Recycling is how paper gets a second life, but every pass wears the fibre down. The loop only keeps turning because fresh fibre is added, and today that fibre comes from trees. Hemp can be the fresh fibre instead, and in lab tests it did the job better than wood.

Why the loop needs new fibre

  1. Collect
  2. Pulp & de-ink
  3. Make paper
  4. Use
  5. Fibres weaken, some are lost
  6. Top up with fresh fibre

Europe recycles over 70% of its paper, yet a fibre lasts about five cycles on average before it is too weak to use or is lost along the way. Without new fibre, the recycled supply would wear out.10

Long fibres knit a sheet together

Hemp bark (bast)20 mm
Softwood (spruce, pine)3 mm
Hardwood1.25 mm
Hemp woody core (hurd)0.5 mm
Average fibre length, drawn to scale.12 The long fibres come from hemp's bark, about a third of the stalk. The woody core gives short fibres, so the bark is what adds strength.

What the lab found

Researchers in Latvia blended hemp pulp into paper made from recycled fibre. A quarter hemp raised tensile strength 78% and burst strength 79%. The same share of virgin wood pulp raised tensile strength 33%.11

That suggests a small amount of hemp could keep recycled paper strong for longer, so the loop needs fewer trees to keep turning. These were small lab sheets, so results at mill scale still need proving.

50% hemp pulp+90%
25% hemp pulp+78%
25% virgin wood pulp+33%
50% virgin wood pulp+22%
Tensile strength gain when each pulp is blended into paper made only from recycled fibre. Scale runs 0 to 100%.11

In the field

Fresh fibre, replanted each spring

The new fibre the recycling loop needs can come from a field that grows back every year, instead of a forest that takes decades to return.

Crowds out weeds

Planted thick, hemp closes its canopy fast and shades out weeds, which can cut herbicide use. Young plants still need clean ground for their first few weeks.13

Draws metals out of damaged soil

In a field trial on contaminated land, hemp removed an estimated 126 g of cadmium per hectare each season, with its fibres undamaged. That crop isn't fit for paper, since every part of the plant holds metals, but it can help bring land back.14

The fine print

What we won't claim.

A movement that overstates its case loses the people it needs. Here is where hemp paper still falls short.

  • It costs more today.Hemp paper often sells for five to six times the price of wood paper. Volume is what brings that down.4
  • Managed forests are replanted.The paper industry plants more trees than it cuts, and a growing forest gives habitat and stores carbon in ways a hemp field does not. Our point is narrower: forests are worth more standing than as paper.8
  • Hemp asks more of the field.It is a farmed crop. For a reliable stand it usually needs fertile ground, added nitrogen and tillage, which works against soil-building methods like no-till. Trees on a long rotation need far less tending.15, 16
  • We don't claim water savings.You will see claims that hemp paper uses far less water. We have not found peer-reviewed evidence for them, so we leave them out.
  • Supply is small, and shrinking.Canada grew 933 hectares of fibre hemp in 2025, half the year before and under a third of 2023. Farmers plant what buyers ask for. Every treegan is a buyer asking.9

The treegan pledge

Three small habits. One standing forest.

  1. I choose tree-free paper for the notes, cards and flyers I make.
  2. I use both sides, then I recycle it.
  3. I ask my printer, my office and my building to stock hemp paper.