The Confederation of Paper Industries has urged Linpac Allibert to publish the full Sustain report on the carbon footprint of its returnable transport packaging and warned against "simple environmental answers".

In January, Linpac Allibert revealed that its plastic RTP was more carbon efficient than single-trip cardboard containers after 20 trips, and had 68% smaller carbon footprint.

But the CPI has hit back against the Sustain report and said it was "very difficult to make broad generalisations" and it was important to reveal the specific conditions alongside the data.

The organisation highlighted the many variables, such as transport distances and storage space, to be considered in addition to the choice of packaging material.

Clive Bowers, chairman of CPI's Corrugated Sector, welcomed a robust debate on environmental issues, but warned that "complete transparency" meant it was important to compare "like with like".

He added the CPI was unable to comment on the Linpac-Allibert pallet as it had not seen the whole report.

"We look forward to the full report being made available to all parties in this debate," he said.