Eska, part of RDM Group, a leading European recycled cartonboard producer, has announced a partnership with Releaf, a materials engineering company, to launch Eska Leaf, a new recycled solid board made of fallen leaves.

Collected from the streets of major cities – including Paris, the centre of luxury – the leaves are given a second life as this prdmium board. It turns a discarded resource into something a brand owner can put directly into a customer’s hands.

Eska Leaf will make its industry debut at Luxe Pack Monaco, the leading global event for luxury packaging, running from 28 to 30 September 2026 at the Grimaldi Forum. Visitors will be able to see the product at Booth RC02.

Seasonality by design
Autumn, and the fallen leaves that mark it, is a season widely recognised and associated with familiar, seasonal imagery. Eska Leaf brings that association into a premium packaging material, giving brands a way to reference seasonality and provenance through the pack itself.

According to research by Perspectus Global in 2026, co-commissioned earlier in the year by RDM Group, over half of Europeans link packaging and recycling with sustainability, and 80% say visible use of recycled cartonboard would help brands seem more environmentally responsible. Eska Leaf gives brands a clear way to show that commitment in a novel way.

Material and process
The Eska Leaf pairs Eska’s recycled solid board with a leaf-paper lamination from Releaf, preserving the natural appearance and texture of the raw material. The result is a board with a distinct look and feel. One that carries something of the streets and trees the leaves were swept from. It’s an original approach at a time when the packaging industry is looking for ways to ease pressure on forests.

Custom Service
Eska Leaf showcases the near endless possibilities for customised cartonboard, and what recycled cartonboard can become when sustainability, luxury and personalisation are treated as one brief rather than three. The collaboration puts Eska’s key strengths on display: in-house lamination expertise, near-endless customisation possibilities, premium tactility and the ability to move from creative idea to tailored packaging solution quickly and flexibly.

That capability sits behind a dedicated laboratory for bespoke and personalised board development, open to brand owners and converters who wish to collaborate on a signature material of their own.

Collaboration of Expertise
The partnership brings Releaf’s material science together with RDM Group’s, Eska’s parent company, manufacturing scale and lamination expertise in solid board.

For RDM Group, the collaboration continues a long-standing focus on preserving fibre and finding new ways to upcycle material, extending that mission to a raw material that would otherwise go to waste.

“Sustainability and circularity are built into our mission,” said Krzysztof Krajewski, Chief Sustainability and Innovation Officer at RDM Group (parent company of Eska). “Eska Leaf shows what’s possible when we combine our fibre expertise with a partner like Releaf: a material that reduces pressure on forests, tells a story about where it comes from and still meets the standards our customers expect from solid board.”

“Every autumn, cities collect and discard millions of tonnes of leaves as waste.” said Valentyn Frechka, co-founder of Releaf. “Our work is about showing that this waste can become a valuable material resource. Partnering with RDM Group and Eska allows us to combine Releaf’s material technology with Eska’s industrial expertise and bring a new class of leaf-based materials into premium packaging.”

Source: pulpapernews.com