Company cutting carbon, creating 'sustainable' goods
Business Courier of Cincinnati - by Lisa Biank Fasig
Procter & Gamble Co. has learned a few important lessons in innovation over the decades, and one is that pure do-goodedness does not sell a diaper.
So as the world's largest consumer products maker pursues its program to reduce its carbon footprint 40 percent by 2012, it knows that every save-the-Earth effort has to be balanced against a serve-the-consumer benefit. Very few people - only 5 percent to 10 percent - are willing to buy detergent or paper towels purely because they are eco-friendly, P&G said.
The challenge is creating innovations that do not compromise performance. And in P&G's case performance alone isn't always enough.
P&G's goal is to develop $20 billion of "sustainable innovation" products, such as Tide Coldwater or Bounty Mega rolls, by 2012. But such innovations also must provide an added benefit to the shopper and, ideally, reduce P&G's own costs for plastics, packaging and fuel.
Such products do not fall from the sky.
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P&G is more than halfway to achieving its goal of cutting greenhouse gases, waste and other consumption by 2012. Since 2002 it has reduced the waste by 30 percent, Sauers said, so it has an additional 10 percent to go.
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"We're going through right now fundamental changes in our buildings to get sustainability integrated into the lives of our workers," Sauers said. P&G is, for example, on a path to eliminate water bottles in favor of its own Pur water purification systems.
For the consumer, P&G has produced several products that are earth friendly, many of which seem no different but deliver significant cost savings. It has, for instance, reduced the diaper weight of Pampers by 40 percent over the past 20 years - to 35 grams - and in turn cut back on its packaging by 70 percent. During the same time, P&G was able to reduce incidents of diaper rash, creating what it considers a "perfect innovation."
Another such innovation is Tide Cold–water, introduced in 2005. If every U.S. family used cold water, P&G deduced, the nation's annual household energy consumption would be cut by 3 percent - or 34 million tons of carbon dioxide - and consumers on average would save $63 on utilities.
More high-profile innovations followed, such as the 2006 move to concentrate its detergents and carry them in smaller bottles. This is expected to cut plastic packaging and materials by 140 million pounds annually.
Such innovations help consumers recognize their own role in reducing the carbon footprint, said Ryan Schuchard, associate, environmental research and development, at Business for Social Responsibility.
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