A Look at Progress One Year After Ambition 2030

Just last month, I traveled to Bermuda – not for a vacation, but for a chance to see the accumulation of plastic waste in the North Atlantic Gyre up close. I didn’t go alone. With me were over 150 other people, all of them passionate about solving the complex issue of plastic waste in the world’s oceans.

We came together for the 2019 Ocean Plastics Leadership Summit, and we weren’t just there as spectators – we were there as problem-solvers. It was a sobering and inspiring journey, and one that was especially poignant for me, as I made the trip just as P&G was celebrating the first anniversary of the launch of our Ambition 2030 sustainability goals – one of those being that “we will develop solutions so no P&G packaging will find its way to the world’s oceans.” We designed this bold set of commitments to leverage P&G’s scale to enable and inspire positive impact on the environment and the five billion people our brands touch each day around the world – and although we still have much to do together, I’m proud to say we’re already making progress.

I am humbled to be supported by colleagues who have stepped up to the challenge in an admirable fashion – 80% of our 95,000 employees have declared they are contributing to the Company’s sustainability efforts in our recent employee survey. We’re making progress in enabling people to embrace responsible consumption. We’re making progress in proving that companies can play a role in solving some of the world’s most complex challenges. And, we’re making progress in demonstrating that sustainability at scale is possible, through the work of our brands, innovation across the supply chain, our engagement in global partnerships and the dedication of our employees.

Achieving Positive Impacts through Our Brands 

P&G is committed to reinventing our brands so they become a force for good and a force for growth. This is something we’ve codified with our new “Brand 2030” criteria, a forward-looking framework we introduced in April at Sustainable Brands (SB) Paris that includes strategies to make responsible consumption irresistible, leverage our brands' voices to promote sustainable behaviors, commit to transparency and to reduce our impacts across our supply chain. We are now holding our leadership brands, including Pampers?, Tide?, Downy?, Olay? and Herbal Essences?, accountable to deliver against our criteria. The P&G brands that people know and love will continue to do their part to promote conversations, influence attitudes, shift behaviors and ultimately drive meaningful change.

Just recently, at SB Detroit, P&G announced its participation as a founding partner of the Brands for Good coalition, a coordinated effort among global brands to be a force for good and a force for growth through mutual commitments to:

• Embed environmental and social purpose into the heart of our brand promises, our products and experiences.
• Use our marketing, communications and brand influence to make sustainable living accessible, aspirational and rewarding.
• Work together to transform the field of marketing to shift behaviors and drive positive impact with people, communities and the planet we share.

P&G recognizes and embraces the responsibility we have to be a catalyst for good, both within our walls and in the communities we serve.

Taking Responsibility from Start to Finish

All the brands we showcased at SB Detroit demonstrated our commitment to being responsible stewards of the ingredients that go into our products. Our goal is to be transparent with our consumers about the what, where and how of our ingredients. Our passion drives us to relentlessly pursue the best and safest ingredients from both science and nature, ensuring that people can continue to use our products with confidence in their quality and superior performance. Through these actions, we hope to have a positive impact on the environment and the lives of the people we serve.

We’re focused on responsible ingredient sourcing, actively participating in initiatives like the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) that seek to establish industry-wide standards for responsible palm practices. In April, we also announced a new collaboration with Malaysia Institute for Supply Chain Innovation (MISI), International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) and Yara International to help improve the livelihood of smallholders within the P&G palm supply chain in Malaysia.

We have committed to reducing and eliminating waste in the manufacturing process, with more than 85 percent of our manufacturing sites already sending zero manufacturing waste to landfill and the remaining 15 percent achieving that goal by 2020. Europe is the first region to have achieved zero manufacturing waste to landfill one year ahead of our global target. We reduced water use in manufacturing facilities by 25 percent per unit of production with conservation focused on water-stressed regions. And of course we remain committed to reducing waste in our packaging following the "three Rs" hierarchy of waste:

1. Reduction – We announced last April our goal to reduce global use of virgin petroleum plastic in our packaging by 50% by 2030 and P&G Fabric Care Europe committed to reduce their plastic packaging by 30% by 2025.
2. Reuse – (see information on Loop pilots below) and
3. Recyclability – 100% recyclable or reusable packaging by 2030 with some businesses reaching that goal quicker – 100% recyclability by 2022 for P&G Fabric Care Europe and by 2023 for P&G Fabric Care North America.

Keeping Good Company

The truth is, while there is much P&G can do and much we are already doing to support a more sustainable future for us all, we cannot do it alone. P&G is actively engaging with other companies, associations and non-governmental organizations to leverage our collective strength, skill and ingenuity for the greater good, including our principal membership in World Wildlife Fund (WWF)’s new platform, ReSource: Plastic.

With the support of our global partners, we are able to drive the scale and speed necessary to solve the biggest challenges facing our environment, including through the commercialization and adoption of technologies like FaterSMART. This P&G and Angelini Group Joint Venture can recycle 100% of used absorbent hygiene products – baby diapers, adult incontinence and fem care products – into secondary raw materials and is one of the most impressive pieces of technology I’ve ever seen.

And that’s not the only way we’re shifting our mindset to drive more circular solutions made possible through breakthrough partnerships. Last month, we were thrilled to launch two new pilot programs in New York and Paris on TerraCycle’s groundbreaking Loop platform.

Participants in the pilot will be able to purchase household-favorite products from nearly a dozen brands – including Tide?, Ariel?, Cascade?, Febreze? and Pantene? – in new durable, refillable packaging conveniently delivered straight to their doorsteps. Once the containers are empty, Loop collects and cleans the packaging that can then be put back in the circulation loop for reuse.

I am also so proud of our efforts as one of the founding members of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW), which is the biggest effort of its kind to develop scalable solutions to help end plastic waste in the environment and especially in our oceans.

My hope is that by combining these powerful resources, reach and knowledge, we are able to truly drive significant change at a meaningful scale and solve what I observed in the North Atlantic Gyre.

Taking Bold Steps Forward Together

It has been a year since our Ambition 2030 sustainability goals launched, and while we have progress to celebrate, we must remain focused on what lies ahead and continue to work together to drive sustainability at scale and leverage the influence of our brands and transformative partnerships. I have never been so optimistic that this is entirely possible to achieve and look forward to the path ahead.