The Clorox Company has reduced its greenhouse gases emissions by 12 percent and the amount of waste it sends to landfill per case of product sold by 34 percent since 2011, according to the company’s 2014 integrated annual report. Altogether, these footprint reductions and product sustainability improvements have averaged $15 million in annual cost savings since 2008, helping to offset raw material cost increases and enable investments in innovation and demand creation.
The report, Powered by Value, reviews the company’s financial, environmental, social and governance performance in the context of its 2020 Strategy. Clorox’s 2020 Strategy sets clear business and corporate responsibility objectives to drive long-term, sustainable growth.
After investing $20 million in such innovations as 3D printing, Clorox delivered 3 percentage points of incremental sales from product innovation, and since 2011, the company has made sustainability improvements to 15 percent of its products. The company has set a goal to make sustainability improvements to 50 percent of its product portfolio by 2020.
Another route Clorox is taking to achieve its goals is driving employee engagement. According to the report, the company continued its agile enterprise work, empowering employees to make decisions faster and streamline operational processes. Clorox’s employee engagement score of 86 percent once again surpassed the industry benchmark and the company continued to keep safety at the forefront, reporting a recordable incident rate of 0.69. A number of organizations also recognized Clorox for its efforts to foster a diverse and inclusive workplace.
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For the second year, an independent accounting firm provided review-level assurance of key non-financial indicators in fiscal 2014. These metrics, indicated by an "A" symbol within the report, include global greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption; U.S. water consumption; product sustainability improvements; workforce demographics/diversity; U.S. product donations; safety/recordable incident rate; and employee engagement.
Last week, Clorox announced the launch of its Clorox Preferred Ingredient Calculator, as well as the expansion of its Ingredients Inside program — a mobile app that lists and explains all ingredients of Clorox products to shoppers — to include specific fragrance components. Both are aimed at showing consumers what goes into their cleaning and care products so they can make informed purchasing decisions, as well as pushing the company to continue making sustainable ingredient choices.
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Mike Hower is the founder of Hower Impact — a boutique consultancy delivering best-in-class strategic communication advisory and support for corporate sustainability, ESG and climate tech.
Published Oct 13, 2014 9am EDT / 6am PDT / 2pm BST / 3pm CEST