Henkel Supports Sustainable Innovation

For more than 130 years, Henkel (www.henkelna.com) has worked hard to achieve sustainable development. The company's many external accolades prove that it is clearly a thought-leader within the greater consumer goods industry when it comes to sustainability and social responsibility initiatives.

After winning the German Sustainability Award in December 2008, the manufacturer of Purex, Renuzit, Dial, Right Guard and many other brands received the Wal-Mart Sustainability Award, which recognizes the supplier for making the biggest contribution to sustainability across the globe. And for the second time running, the Ethisphere Institute and Forbes magazine included Henkel on their list of the "World's Most Ethical Companies" in 2009.

Internally, the company considers its sustainability strategy -- which encompasses the entire value chain -- as an opportunity to set itself apart from competitors and offer added value to both its customers and consumers.

"Through our brands and technologies, and as an employer, we work to meet the needs of people today without compromising the development opportunities of future generations," states Dr. Rick Theiler, Ph.D., senior vice president Research and Development (R&D) for Henkel Consumer Goods Inc. in North America. "In a nutshell, the benefits of sustainable business practices have been essential to the successful growth and continued profitability of our company."

Realizing a Vision

At Henkel, sustainability and innovation are closely linked. The company's vision for every product development program is to ensure that new products contribute to sustainable development in at least one of five focal areas: energy and climate, water and wastewater, materials and waste, health and safety, and social progress.

In 2007, the company announced five-year sustainability targets: A 15 percent further reduction in energy consumption; a 10 percent further reduction in water consumption; a 10 percent further reduction in the amount of water generated per ton of output; and a 20 percent reduction in occupational accidents with a longer term goal of zero.

The Manufacture of Henkel

products has great potential to make positive contributions toward the aforementioned goals as well as tackle social challenges such as climate change, resource conservation and hygienic conditions.

"Sustainability is a mindset that drives the very first stages of product design and causes the R&D team to look at every aspect of a product. What we have learned is that the greatest rewards typically come from designing sustainability upfront into all of our new products," states Theiler.

Thus, Henkel is part of an active research program both internally and with leading universities that focuses on lifecycle impact analysis (LCA) from a cradle to grave perspective.

"Our efforts are focused on making every new product more sustainable than the product it replaces," says Theiler.

Within the product lifecycle, Henkel focuses on the choice of raw materials, the manufacturing process for making the product, the impact of distribution and shipping, and ultimately, the consumer use and disposal phase for a product. Theiler says that it is important to note that very often the last phase of the product lifecycle, when consumers actually use products, is where Henkel sees the largest influence on the total LCA for a product.

"Given this fact, we are exploring new technologies that can change consumer habits or behavior to reduce a product's overall environmental footprint," says Theiler.

From Cradle to Grave

Theiler shared recent product development examples with CGT to show how Henkel incorporates sustainable best practices into every aspect of the product lifecycle.

For starters, Henkel has begun to replace a number of petro-chemically derived materials with those available in nature. Consumers can now purchase Purex Natural Elements laundry detergent in the Unites States and Terra Activ laundry detergent in Europe, both made with significantly higher amounts of naturally-derived materials such as naturally-sourced cleaning ingredients, fabric softener with biodegradable softening ingredients, and natural fragrance extracts.

Additionally, 94 percent of the ingredients in the new shower gel formula for the Pure & Natural personal care line in the United States are derived natural raw materials.

Henkel also considers the consumer's environmental impact when developing new products. For example, foaming liquid hand soaps, like Dial Complete, aim to change consumer behavior by reducing their water usage by 40 percent. The Dial Complete pump dispenses a foam, which cuts the amount of time and water required to generate a lather to remove dirt and germs when compared to traditional liquid and bar soaps.

"And with two to four billion hand washes occurring each day in America more than six billion gallons of water could be saved per year if everyone used foaming liquid hand soaps," Theiler explains.

But sustainable best practices don't stop with new product development at Henkel. Sustainable innovation extends to its manufacturing, transportation and distribution operations. In manufacturing , Henkel has moved to cold temperature processing for a number of its personal care and air care products, reducing the amount of energy previously needed for production.

And according to Theiler, Henkel also dramatically reduced the amount of plastic or paper needed to package its products. The company is also an active user of recycled materials. For example, it re-uses 25 percent or more of re-cycled plastics in detergent and fabric softener bottles.

With regard to transportation and distribution, logistics planning is tailored to the nature of the products to be transported. For relatively bulky products, Henkel reduces the transport mileage and the environmental burden by maintaining regional production sites. More compact products with a low specific weight make fewer demands on transport, so Henkel produces them centrally in large quantities wherever possible. Recently, Henkel concentrated its Purex laundry detergent line, saving millions of gallons of diesel fuel.

In closing, Theiler reminds us that sustainable innovation is a continuous process. "With each improvement come new ideas on the next step, new ways of exploring a problem, or new insights of trying something that hasn't been done in the past," closes Theiler.