Materials & Packaging

Beautycounter, HP, Humanscale, Naturepedic Report Progress on Managing Chemical Footprints

33 companies participated in the 5th Annual Chemical Footprint Project survey. For the first time, seven companies scored over 80% of possible points.

Published 3 years ago | About a 3 minute read

Image: R.F._.studio/Pexels

Today, Clean Production Action released its 5th Annual Chemical Footprint Project (CFP) Report —which evaluates and benchmarks participating companies on their progress to best practices in proactive chemicals management. The 33 companies participating in the CFP 2020 survey — its highest number to date — came from seven industries and ranged in size from small, privately owned companies to large, publicly traded multinationals. For the first time in the five years of the CFP Survey, seven companies scored over 80 percent of possible points. These front-runners were far more likely than other participants in the Survey to:

• Have senior leadership- and Board-level engagement in chemicals management

• Publicly disclose their Restricted Substances List (RSL), manufacturing RSL (MRSL), and CFP 2020 Survey responses and scores

• Measure their chemical footprint using the CFP Chemicals of High Concern (CoHC) reference list of over 2,200 chemicals

• Invest in safer alternatives to CoHCs

Investors, retailers, and NGOs increasingly demand transparency as to where companies are on their chemicals management journey. CFP Signatories include investors with over $2 trillion in assets under management, and retailers and health care organizations with over $800 billion in purchasing power.

The CFP Survey provides a holistic framework for how companies can identify hazardous chemicals in their products, packaging, manufacturing and supply chains — and replace them with safer alternatives.

“This past year’s COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us that things we cannot see can hurt us very badly and that the single most effective strategy for safeguarding health and preventing disease is to prevent exposure. These lessons underscore the importance of reducing exposures to hazardous chemicals in the economy,” explains Philip Landrigan, MD, pediatrician epidemiologist and Director of the Program for Global Public Health and the Global Observatory on Pollution and Health at Boston College. “A large and growing body of evidence shows beyond any shadow of a doubt that toxic chemicals can cause a range of diseases that include cancer, diseases of the heart and lungs, and reproductive impairment. Prevention of these impacts is most effectively achieved by phasing out the use of toxic chemicals.”

This year’s Disclosure Leaders — companies that agreed to publicly disclose their survey responses and score, demonstrating their willingness to engage with stakeholders on the measures they are taking to understand and reduce their chemical footprint — are Beautycounter, Becton Dickinson and Co., GOJO Industries, Herman Miller, HP Inc., Humanscale, Naturepedic, Seventh Generation and Walmart.

As Tim Greiner, co-founder and Managing Director at sustainability consulting firm Pure Strategies — one of the founding organizations behind CFP — explained in 2017: “Chemicals management has been a compliance-focused effort for a long time within companies. [But] the good news is that companies are shifting to chemicals management approaches that are based on continuous improvement, and moving to safer materials before there are regulatory requirements. A key part of this is less reliance on a risk framework and more focus on inherent hazard — understanding that if we can prevent the hazard to begin with, then we don’t have to manage the risk.”

Learn more details, and how your company can participate in next year’s survey, here.