ForMatter/Materials/paper/Kraft Paperboard
mat_paperboard_kraft

Kraft Paperboard

wood-fiber paperboard, sulfate process · kraft board, SBS (solid bleached sulfate), corrugated linerboard, natural kraft
highlast updated 2026-04-28

The brown cardboard of shipping boxes, the white-faced board of cereal cartons. Made by cooking wood chips in alkaline sulfate (kraft = strength in German). Strong, foldable, printable, the most-recycled material by tonnage in the household waste stream.

Kraft pulp from softwood (long fiber, strength) or hardwood (short fiber, smoothness). Common product weights 200–600 g/m² for boards. Layered constructions: linerboard (faces) plus corrugating medium (flutes) for shipping cartons; SBS (solid bleached sulfate) for printed retail packaging. Coated grades (C1S, C2S) take litho printing.

Mechanical

  • density · kg/m³800
  • tensile strength MD · kN/m8
  • bursting strength · kPa700
source: TAPPI standards; manufacturer datasheets (Stora Enso, WestRock)

Sustainability

  • embodied carbon · kg CO₂e/kg1.1
  • embodied carbon recycled · kg CO₂e/kg0.65
  • recyclabilityvery high — most-recovered packaging material (>70% in OECD); fiber survives 5–7 cycles before length degrades
  • biodegradableTrue
  • certificationsFSC, PEFC, SFI
  • localityglobally produced; major mills in Nordics, Brazil, US Southeast, China
source: Editorial estimate from ICE / Granta CES EduPack class databases — industry mean, with cradle-to-gate boundary unless otherwise noted. Embodied carbon for any specific product depends on supplier mix, recycled content, and energy grid; verify against a primary source before using these numbers in a sustainability claim.
visual
natural brown to bleached white, faint visible fibers, takes ink crisply when coated
tactile
fibrous edge unless die-cut, slightly absorbent unless calendered
weight perception
very light
acoustic
soft rustle, no resonance
Tim Minshall (living — quote)

Decades of growth, gone in sixty seconds.

Minshall, Your Life Is Manufactured: How We Make Things, Why It Matters and How We Can Do It Better (Faber, 2025), Chapter 1, 'Magic', section 'From tree to pulp'. Minshall describes the modern tree-harvester (Komatsu 931XC-2020, John Deere 1470G) cutting down forty-to-150-year-old trees in seconds for the pulp pipeline.
Thomas Schröpfer (living — quote)

The perceived value of a material is not always inherent within itself, but in the care, difficulty, and craft of its treatment within a culture. Taking a material outside of its established architectural application and studying its properties helps to reconsider its perceived value. Similar to Shigeru Ban's repurposing of paper tubes, an architect can find architectural value in a material where there was none.

Schröpfer, Material Design: Informing Architecture by Materiality (Birkhäuser, 2011), Chapter 1, 'The Alternative Approach', section 'Quality, Craft, and Culture in Material Design', p. 21. Schröpfer is living (SUTD Singapore); verbatim only. The passage frames Shigeru Ban's career-long reuse of corrugated paper tubes — first as exhibit prop (Alvar Aalto / MoMA, 1986), then as the Library of a Poet (1990, the first permanent paper-tube structure), then through emergency housing for Rwandan refugees and the Japan Pavilion at Hanover Expo 2000.

PBR starter values

finish · fibrous — open for table, JSON, host snippets, downloads

Principled BSDF defaults derived from the sphere fibrous finish. Reasonable seed for Blender, Substance, Keyshot, Rhino — tune per material. Or grab the whole library at once: ForMaterials library →

# finish:                   fibrous
albedo                      #b89868
metallic                    0.00
roughness                   0.70
ior                         1.45
transmission                0.00
clearcoat                   0.00
sheen                       0.70
anisotropic                 0.50
copy as JSON 
{
  "albedo": "#b89868",
  "metallic": 0.0,
  "roughness": 0.7,
  "ior": 1.45,
  "transmission": 0.0,
  "clearcoat": 0.0,
  "sheen": 0.7,
  "anisotropic": 0.5
}
Blender 4.x Python 
# Blender 4.x — Principled BSDF
# Kraft Paperboard · finish: fibrous
import bpy
mat = bpy.data.materials.new(name="mat_paperboard_kraft")
mat.use_nodes = True
bsdf = mat.node_tree.nodes["Principled BSDF"]
bsdf.inputs["Base Color"].default_value         = (0.4793, 0.314, 0.1384, 1.0)
bsdf.inputs["Metallic"].default_value           = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Roughness"].default_value          = 0.700
bsdf.inputs["IOR"].default_value                = 1.450
bsdf.inputs["Transmission Weight"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Coat Weight"].default_value        = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Sheen Weight"].default_value       = 0.700
bsdf.inputs["Anisotropic"].default_value        = 0.500
KeyShot Python (lux) 
# KeyShot 11+ — lux Python API, Generic material
# Kraft Paperboard · finish: fibrous
# Run from Window → Scripting Console
import lux
mat = lux.createMaterial(name="mat_paperboard_kraft", materialType="Generic")
mat.setProperty("diffuse",      (184, 152, 104))   # 8-bit sRGB
mat.setProperty("metallic",     0.000)
mat.setProperty("roughness",    0.700)
mat.setProperty("indexOfRefraction", 1.450)
mat.setProperty("transparency", 0.000)
mat.setProperty("coatingWeight", 0.000)
Substance pbrMetalRough 
{
  "_format": "Substance Designer / Painter \u2014 pbrMetalRough constants",
  "_about": "Kraft Paperboard \u00b7 finish: fibrous",
  "baseColor": {
    "r": 0.4793,
    "g": 0.314,
    "b": 0.1384
  },
  "metallic": 0.0,
  "roughness": 0.7,
  "ior": 1.45,
  "opacity": 1.0,
  "anisotropyLevel": 0.5,
  "_notes": "Channels listed are the standard Substance pbrMetalRough output. Drop into a Uniform Color node per channel, or as the constant input on a layered stack."
}
glTF 2.0 Metallic-Roughness 
{
  "asset": {
    "version": "2.0",
    "generator": "ForMatter"
  },
  "materials": [
    {
      "name": "mat_paperboard_kraft",
      "pbrMetallicRoughness": {
        "baseColorFactor": [
          0.4793,
          0.314,
          0.1384,
          1.0
        ],
        "metallicFactor": 0.0,
        "roughnessFactor": 0.7
      },
      "extensions": {
        "KHR_materials_ior": {
          "ior": 1.45
        },
        "KHR_materials_sheen": {
          "sheenColorFactor": [
            1.0,
            1.0,
            1.0
          ],
          "sheenRoughnessFactor": 0.7
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}
USD Preview Surface 
# USD Preview Surface — UsdShade.MaterialLook prim attributes
# Kraft Paperboard · finish: fibrous
def Material "mat_paperboard_kraft" {
    token outputs:surface.connect = </mat_paperboard_kraft/PreviewSurface.outputs:surface>

    def Shader "PreviewSurface" {
        uniform token info:id = "UsdPreviewSurface"
        color3f inputs:diffuseColor = (0.4793, 0.314, 0.1384)
        float   inputs:metallic     = 0.000
        float   inputs:roughness    = 0.700
        float   inputs:ior          = 1.450
        float   inputs:opacity      = 1.000
        float   inputs:clearcoat    = 0.000
        token   outputs:surface
    }
}
↓ download glTF material
ProcessLaser Cutting · Adhesive Bonding
Used inFood Packaging
Substitutes
Mycelium Composite (Grown)
Finishes that suit this material
Calendered paper (smooth / supercalendered) · polished
Embossed paper (relief texture) · textured

Second life

repairabilityvery low — paper repairs are cosmetic; structural integrity rarely recovered.
recyclabilityvery high — RIC code 21 (kraft); the most-recycled paper grade globally.
disposal pathcurbside paper recycling; biodegradation in compost.
typical longevity5 years (typical)
failure modes
  • water damage
  • UV yellowing
  • fold-fatigue at corrugation lines

American Forest & Paper Association recycled-fiber statistics; Forest Stewardship Council certification.

Citations

  • en.wikipedia.org — Kraft paper
  • tappi.org — standards methods
  • book · Minshall, Your Life Is Manufactured (Faber, 2025), Chapter 1, 'Magic'.
  • book · Schröpfer (ed.) with Carpenter, Fowler, Kennedy, Lovett, Margolis, Mori, Tehrani & Yeadon, Material Design: Informing Architecture by Materiality (Birkhäuser, 2011), Chapter 1, p. 21.

Further reading