On December 8, 2015, at the 10th Annual BizNGO Chemical Footprint Conference in Boston, Mass., we announced our 2020 Sustainable Value Strategies and Goals, which included a bold commitment to reduce our chemical footprint by 50% by the end of 2020. In doing so, we became the first company to publicly announce a specific chemical footprint reduction target. Our sustainable chemistry strategy goes far beyond the required regulatory compliance in countries where our products are sold. This goal is another example of our commitment to lead by going above and beyond to offer products that are worry-free for our customers and better for the environment.
Our sustainable chemistry journey
This declaration was the next step in a journey that started almost 70 years earlier. The trailhead of our sustainable chemistry journey was laid down by Goldie and Jerry Lippman in 1946 when they began to offer a safer handwashing alternative that replaced the harsh, dangerous solvents, like gasoline, kerosene, and benzene, that rubber factory workers used to remove graphite and carbon black left on their hands at the end of their work shifts.
Although we did not call it sustainability at the time, our continuing search for better, safer solutions became a way of thinking and working at GOJO. That work continued at the first GOJO Sustainability Summit in 2009, where we gathered with hundreds of internal and external stakeholders and committed to a set of voluntary, ambitious goals: support social sustainability with green certified products that improve health and well-being, and make significant reductions in the water we use, the waste we create, and the greenhouse gases we release. These goals were meant to be five-year goals when announced in 2010, but we exceeded them two years early. Inspired by our success, we sought an opportunity to further elevate our commitment to safer and more sustainable products.
The Chemical Footprint Project
In 2015, GOJO signed on as one of the first participants in the pilot for the Chemical Footprint Project, an initiative focused on the use of safe chemicals. In the Chemical Footprint Project’s annual survey, participating manufacturers, brands, and retailers evaluate their chemical management strategy, chemical inventory, and chemical footprint. A company’s chemical footprint – the total amount of chemicals used by a company that has been identified for possible removal or reduction – can be used as a benchmark for an organization to measure and ensure its use of safe chemicals.
Our participation in this initiative helped GOJO evaluate our chemical use, implement a sustainable chemistry policy, and ultimately declare our 2020 goal to reduce our chemical footprint by 50%.
Chemical footprinting at GOJO
In 2015, we developed a GOJO Sustainable Chemistry Implementation Team, a cross-functional group of GOJO subject matter experts with expertise in ingredient safety assessment, toxicology, formulation development, and chemical sourcing. This group examined the composition of all GOJO products and calculated our total chemical footprint for the first time. Of that footprint, two substances were targeted for reduction: titanium dioxide and crystalline silica.
Learning from customers
Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is used as a colorant in some of our heavy-duty hand cleaners. As such, it does not contribute to the cleansing efficacy of the handwash product. Our first attempt to reduce the contribution of TiO2 to our chemical footprint was to remove all titanium dioxide from our products. We were surprised to learn our customers did not like the resulting appearance of the product – the uncolored product was not appealing to users. In fact, in a field trial, users perceived the cleansing efficacy of the uncolored product to be lower than that of the colored product, despite laboratory tests demonstrating the cleansing efficacy was unaffected by the removal of the TiO2 colorant.
We conducted a series of field trials in which we tested varying concentrations of TiO2 in the product and determined the lowest concentration of TiO2 in the product that was appealing to the users. After several months of testing, reformulation, and retesting, we had a reformulated product that satisfied our customers, maintained the expected cleansing efficacy, and achieved an 80% reduction in TiO2.
Learning from suppliers
Crystalline silica presented a new challenge. Unlike titanium dioxide, crystalline silica is an impurity in pumice, a gritty, volcanic material we use in several of our heavy-duty hand cleaners to assist in the removal of stubborn soils, primarily those associated with heavy industries, from workers’ hands.
Crystalline silica occurs naturally in pumice at varying concentrations. Unlike the reduction of TiO2, reducing the level of crystalline silica would entail identifying a different source of pumice with naturally lower levels of crystalline silica or subjecting pumice to treatment to reduce its concentration of crystalline silica. In 2015, we did not know if the former existed or if the latter was feasible. With questions in hand, we reached out to the experts: our suppliers.
We learned our suppliers owned a proprietary technology that could remove substantial amounts of crystalline silica from pumice. A project to purchase the reduced crystalline silica pumice was launched, and we achieved significant reductions of this impurity in our heavy-duty hand cleaners.
Chemical footprint reduced
In 2015, we had set a bold goal to reduce our chemical footprint by 50% by the end of 2020. We exceeded that goal, reducing it by 64% per product use. We did it by leading with a vision of improved safety and sustainability for our products, by challenging our formulation teams to develop products with improved sustainability profiles that deliver the performance expected by our customers, and by learning from and partnering with our suppliers.
Today, we continue our tradition of leading and learning as we develop a new sustainability strategy and goals propelled forward on our journey by an expanded vision of and commitment to sustainability.
This was the final post in a 3-part sustainable focus deep dive. If you missed our other posts, check out: