Reckitt Benckiser Unveils Sustainability Strategy
Health, hygiene and home goods marketer Reckitt Benckiser has unveiled its new sustainability strategy, Betterbusiness, a platform that focuses on addressing three major global challenges: water conservation, more sustainable health and hygiene innovations for women around the world, and further decreases of its carbon footprint.
The Betterbusiness strategy aims to specifically address three major targets by 2020: to deliver a 1/3 reduction in water use, 1/3 further reduction in carbon footprint and have 1/3 of its net revenue coming from more sustainable products. To achieve these goals, RB has detailed functional targets for better design, production and consumer choice through its roster of brands, which includes Clearasil, Mucinex, Lysol and Woolite.
“Sustaining our planet while improving the health and lives of our consumers is extremely important to our RB teams across North America,” said Frederic Larmuseau, president of RB North America. “We are excited to continue implementing smarter design and developing innovative product ideas that will lead to achieving this ambitious goal.”
The new sustainability strategy builds on the success of RB’s global Carbon20 program, which led to a 21 percent improvement in lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions per dose since 2007, and achieved eight years ahead of its 2020 commitment. Additionally, RB’s Trees for Change project, which offsets greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing operations through planting trees, is responsible for planting more than 5.4 million trees in Canada.
The implementation of Betterbusiness in the United States is well under way. For example, RB recently launched Lysol Power & Free bathroom cleaner, which contains hydrogen peroxide and has a 1/3 lower carbon footprint than the previous active ingredient. Additionally, RB’s Finish brand has changed the package shape of units sold at Costco to be more efficient. This has led to a reduction of more than 7,000 pallets, effectively taking more than 200 trucks off the road and saving more than 100,000 road miles by transitioning from cylindrical packaging to a box.
In addition to product innovation and development, collaboration will also be key to the strategy’s success:
- RB recently joined The Sustainability Consortium and is in discussions with WWF, the international conservation organization, to develop a methodology to measure water impact of their business operations and product portfolio. This can have a wide beneficial effect well beyond RB’s own product boundaries.
- RB is developing a new Sustainable Innovation Calculator, based on the principles of RB’s Carbon Calculator. At the product level it will assess ingredients, packaging carbon and water.
- RB is listed in the Carbon Performance Leadership Index (CPLI) 2012 with a disclosure score of 93 and a performance rating of A. The CPLI highlights those companies within the FTSE Global Equity Index Series (Global 500) that have demonstrated a strong approach to climate strategy and emissions reduction in their CDP responses.
- Compliance with RB’s Global Ingredient Guidelines and RB’s Social Standards.
Reckitt Benckiser has operations in more than 60 countries, with headquarters in the United Kingdom, Singapore, Dubai and Amsterdam, and sales in almost 200 countries.