Brandweek (the print magazine and reprinted on the web) had a terrific Q&A session with Len Sauers, the VP Sustainability for Proctor & Gamble.
Taking a different tack than Wal-Mart or Clorox (with Clorox Green Works), P&G is focusing on a portfolio-wide refresh of capabilities zooming in on less packaging.
Len says that research has shown that there is a very small niche of consumers (5-10%) that are willing to make a tradeoff of higher price, lower performance for some environmental benefit. He says that the vast majority, however (50-75%) are not willing to make the tradeoffs.
P&G is aiming for meaningful improvement in the environmental profile of a product relative to current generation of products, but where there are no tradeoffs. Example – TIDE COLD WATER. This detergent delivers the same cleaning performance effect without using hot/warm water in the washing machine. For the USA, this would eliminate 34 million tons of CO2, which is about 8% of the Kyoto goal (never ratified) for the USA.
Also, P&G has reduced by 30% per unit of production their CO2 emissions, energy and water consumption and solid waste. Over the decade, they hope to deliver 40% reductions.
How does your company compare?
