Although the material in itself can be renewable if coming from managed forests, the work needed to harvest wood transform it to pulp and then to paper and the increased weight of the final product to transport is also extremely energy intensive, several journalistic pieces and studies attribute a much higher environmental impact to paper bags compared to single use plastic bags. The worst offender are cotton tote bags which would need to be used several thousands times to offset their production.
Although the material in itself can be renewable if coming from managed forests, the work needed to harvest wood transform it to pulp and then to paper and the increased weight of the final product to transport is also extremely energy intensive, several journalistic pieces and studies attribute a much higher environmental impact to paper bags compared to single use plastic bags. The worst offender are cotton tote bags which would need to be used several thousands times to offset their production.
https://phys.org/news/2020-05-plastic-paper-cotton-bag.html