Our Innovations

We are the first major FMCG company to set a target for reducing our products Total Carbon Footprint. With our Carbon 20 programme, we have made a long-term commitment to tackling the real impact that our products have on climate change across their complete lifecycle.

We are tackling the entire product lifecycle, not just ‘the easy bits’

Our approach is unique. We are not just targeting the ‘easy wins’ under our direct control, like energy reduction in factories or air travel, but the much larger carbon emissions that are ‘embedded’ in the raw and packaging materials we get from suppliers and in consumers’ use and disposal / recycling of our products and their packaging.

Our target does NOT allow carbon offsetting to be counted

We have a major carbon offset project called Tress for Change (www.treesforchange.info), however, we are NOT counting it (or any other carbon offset projects) towards our Carbon 20 target. This is because – although carbon offsetting does have a part to play in tackling climate change – counting offsetting as part of meeting our Carbon 20 target would allow us an ‘easy way out’ if we could not make the real reductions which our target (and climate change) demands.

Our progress will be measured independently, externally audited and reported annually

Our investment in Carbon 20 started six years ago. We have been measuring our businesses direct carbon footprint since 2000, and have already reduced it by 22% per unit 2000 - 2006 (although we are not counting what we have done already in our new Carbon 20 target). We asked independent consultants URS to help us devise and test a trial Total Carbon Footprint measurement system – and it works! The system we have built with URS is also in line with the new draft standard on measuring product carbon footprints.

Independent experts like URS will measure our progress each year and their findings will be assured by a third party auditor before we report them in our annual Sustainability Report. It is a robust, independent and transparent process.

This as a team effort, with suppliers and consumers as well

The areas with the greatest impact on our Total Carbon Footprint are the ones outside of our direct control: the embedded carbon in raw and packaging materials provided by our supply chain, and consumers use of energy when they use our products in their homes – in washing machines and dishwashers for example. So, we are working with our suppliers, distributors and retailers, to find ways of cutting the carbon emissions embedded in our products and also in terms of the energy required to use them in the home.

In October 2007 we joined the Carbon Disclosure Project’s new Supply Chain Leadership Coalition initiative, which is a key step in measuring and managing the carbon emissions generated through the raw and packaging material supply chain.

We have also launched communications campaigns to help customers understand what they can do to reduce energy and water use (and therefore reduce carbon) when they use our products. Just one of these initiatives is the European detergent industries Save Energy and Water project, which our Group Environmental Director led the Task Force for, in 2006.