As one of the largest and most recognizable names in the laundry aisle,
Tide can use its scale to empower consumers to clean
their clothes better — and more efficiently — in every sense of the word.
According to Tide, 40 million homes use its detergents — which means 40 million
opportunities to help consumers make an informed transition to washing laundry
in cold water as opposed to warm or hot water, which Tide and parent company
Procter & Gamble (P&G) have researched in great
detail.
The companies have found that a particularly meaningful way to educate consumers
is through various channels of collaboration.
In 2022, Tide and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) worked with behavioral
science consultancy Behavioral Insights
Team
(BIT) on a comprehensive review of existing published research and case
studies on sustainable habits — including relevant consumer tests from P&G and
best practices in climate change impact from WWF. The goal was to understand
current impacts of consumer laundry habits, and the behavioral changes required
to make a sizable dent in the environmental impact of household laundry.
The 50 Liter Home: Lessons from a multi-industry global collaboration
Join us as leaders from Electrolux and Procter & Gamble share insights and progress to date on ‘The 50 Liter Home’ — a partnership aimed at reducing water consumption in the home, while also generating awareness that leads to better lifestyle choices for sustainable water use — Wednesday, Oct. 16, at SB'24 San Diego.
“We’ve seen how small actions can add up to big impact, especially when
addressing the use phase,” Marty
Spitzer, senior director of climate
and renewable energy at World Wildlife Fund, told Sustainable Brands®.
“Sharing these research findings and the related cold-water case study will
provide useful insights and guidance for all brands and consumers taking on the
behavior-change journey.”
Through Tide’s own research, the company found that shifting consumer habits to
cold water washing is the single most effective way to reduce the environmental
impact of the chore without sacrificing clothing cleanliness or quality. That’s
because a significant portion of the carbon footprint of a load of laundry is
the use phase, largely driven by heating of water. Tide claims that a decade of
North American consumers washing the majority (3 in 4) of their loads in cold
water would save enough electricity to power all of New York City and San
Francisco for over a year[1], or the equivalent of 27 million metric tons
(MT) of GHG emissions.
However, the joint behavior change study found that there were a number of
existing barriers standing in the way of those potential savings. Chief among
them — a lack of education on the environmental impacts, awareness of solutions
available and generally shifting long-established consumer habits and
assumptions (like washing in warm/hot as the only means for sufficient
cleaning).
“When Tide set a goal for three out of four washes to be done on cold by 2030,
we knew we’d need partners to help us drive the change,” said Todd
Cline, Senior Director of
Sustainability, North America Fabric Care at P&G. “Within the first year of
setting our cold-water ambition, we advanced a quarter of the way toward our
goal — a promising signal that consumers were interested in making this shift.”
Collaborating to move the needle
Using findings from its collaboration with WWF and
BIT
and BIT’s EAST (Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely)
framework,
Tide began working at each of these pressure points to help consumers make the
switch to predominantly cold-washing:
-
Easy: Tide began working with machine manufacturers — including
Electrolux, GE Appliances and Samsung — to make cold wash an
easier choice (or, even better, a default setting), including a partnership
to launch the first Tide Cold Certified washing machines, which have a
feature on them that Tide scientists have tested to deliver a better clean
in cold with Tide compared to washing in cold without using the Cold
Feature.
-
Attractive: Consumers are incredibly driven by potential cash savings,
so Tide launched a campaign highlighting how washing in cold (with Tide) can
save people $150 a year on energy bills[2].
-
Social: Connecting laundry to accepted social norms is a big bridge, and
Tide launched a campaign with the
NFL
in which 16 teams washed one million pounds of filthy NFL laundry a year in
cold water — the idea being that, if Tide and cold washes can meet the needs
of the NFL, it’s more than suitable for everyday laundry.
-
Timely: Tide created more opportunities for collaboration and connection
— such as a partnership with HanesBrands
on a call-to-action found on clothing packaging, along with product sampling
opportunities. Tide is also collaborating with
Walmart
to encourage consumers to turn to cold for the love of their clothes, their
wallets and the planet through in-store product sampling and demos, digital
advertising, in-store signage, social media promotion and more.
Tide’s partnerships to drive sustainable outcomes are even moving beyond the
limits of our planet: Tide is working with NASA through a Space Act Agreement
and the International Space Station National
Laboratory to create a
detergent suitable for the resource-constrained confines of space, and to
understand how to translate those efficiencies back to Planet Earth. (This
testing will continue on current and future space missions).
Further, nothing sends a message like a good celebrity
campaign;
so, Tide enlisted the help of Mr. T, Ice-T and Stone Cold Steve Austin
in various TV ads to help drive the message home further.
The combined efforts seem to be working.
Tide reports that in 2023, the percentage of laundry loads washed in cold water
in North America had risen to 57 percent — from less than half (48 percent) in
2020. Tide calculates that the shift to-date has already helped avoid nearly 4
million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
The positive outlook is due in part to the laundry giant’s proactive approach to
partnering to drive positive consumer behavior change; and it’s likely the brand
will continue to leverage its scale and size to get more people washing on cold,
and to inspire other brands — large and small — to join and help consumers
reduce their household environmental impact in other ways.
[1]: By 2030 compared to a 2020 baseline
[2]: In non-HE washer, 8 loads/wk from hot to cold, avg electricity rate
(13.3c/kWh)
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published Jun 3, 2024 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST