Does Earth Day Still Matter? A Grist Special Series

Take a Gamble

The business of Earth Day 6

Posted 8:29 AM on 20 Apr 2009
by Len Sauers
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Len SauersProcter & GambleDoes Earth Day still matter? Sure, it does—absolutely.

But the reason for the day should have evolved for all of us. Instead of simply planting a new seedling and moving on, we should be looking at Earth Day in a new light.

Earth Day should no longer be a jump-start to action, activism, and awakening. We all need to be far beyond that.

Instead, Earth Day should now be about:

celebrating with our employees, communities, and leading companies what we’ve done through the course of the year and what we plan for the future;
thanking those who are helping us down the road to reducing footprints and increasing smart energy alternatives;
serving as a inspiration to build still more connections for best practices and innovation;
encouraging everyone to keep raising the bar higher.

Earth Day started as a way to recognize that the Earth needs help. We should all get that. Now, what are we doing to intervene—and how we can help each other do more?

From a corporate perspective, we are faced with many opportunities to make a tremendous difference. But I would challenge that today’s mission of “going green” is not a bandwagon, it’s a journey. And the deliverables need to not only be real, but long-lasting and sustainable in and of themselves.

I also would challenge that if done strategically, all the “green” stuff we do throughout the rest of the year should be good not just for the environment, but also for business and partnerships. And that right here, at this intersection—where environmental issues and business needs meet—is where green can establish real roots and begin to grow. Here is where it becomes more than a day, but a way of doing business—every day.

At P&G, we made a commitment several years ago to integrate sustainability into every part of our business. All new facilities are built from a sustainability blueprint, ensuring that we are maximizing the natural environment and minimizing our footprint. We’re designing production lines that recycle once-escaping energy. We’re re-engineering packages on many of our 300 brands to reduce packaging without any discernable change to design or to the user’s experience. We’ve also reformulated some of our products, delivering compact laundry formulas that come in smaller bottles or deliver superior cleaning in cold water.

As a result, we’re reducing our energy intake, our waste, and our costs while increasing efficiency and productivity. It’s an artful blend of environmental green and business black.

We’re learning that it’s important to not only make a difference now, but to also ensure we remain a strong player tomorrow. That way, we can continue to help shape the future.

To me, that’s what Earth Day should now be about for us all. It’s not an awakening or a campaign. Short-term wins are not wins. And we can and should be helping each other. After all, we are on this journey—together.

Happy Earth Day!

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Len Sauers leads Procter & Gamble’s overall sustainability efforts and is a 23-year veteran of the company with broad-reaching experience in human safety, regulatory affairs, and environmental science. With a doctorate in toxicology, Len maintains ties with academia through teaching arrangements in Ohio and West Virginia and works closely with P&G’s executive leadership to develop and ensure the company delivers its short- and long-term sustainability goals.

gullyfourmyle Posted 1:41 pm
21 Apr 2009
It's admirable that some one at Proctor and Gamble thinks Earth Day is worthwhile - particularly when you consider how unearth-friendly its products are and how ghastly its factories can be in terms of the psuedo air that employees are forced to inhale while working there.The Bounce Factory is a classic example. If inhaling the intensified aroma of a factory full of Bounce is your idea of olefactory heaven then their facility in eastern Ontario is perfect for you.It's hard to undersatand how Len Sauers said what he did with a straight face.No doubt Proctor and Gamble employees will never think to look on this site to see what their company would have to say about anything regarding eco-friendly practices. How could they think the unthinkable?Just imagine how bad their sites must have been before they got eco-religion.As of right now, Proctor and Gamble does not make one single product or have one single facility that a person with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS) could use or even be near without suffering serious to fatal consequences. Sorry, P&G, you have a long and winding road to go before I'm convinced your spots have faded, never mind changed.Don't be surprised when your employees start showing signs of MCS due to exposure to excessive amounts of caustic chemicals that make up the ambient air in your sites.You should know that MCS victims are untreatable in Ontario by the provincial medical system. So when these patients start presenting, P&G will be paying the full expense to house and treat these people. At that point, your company will be forced to reinvent clean air and non-toxic housing.
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SBCpres1 Posted 1:59 pm
22 Apr 2009
Allow me to add to the reasons why Earth Day still matters. Please see my response to Grist and other Earth Day critics.http://thegreenmarket.blogspot.com/2009/04/silencing-earth-day-critics.html
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strfish Posted 11:57 am
23 Apr 2009
Len –But it hasn’t “evolved for all of us”. It’s part of your job – so you are way ahead of the curve. By my math less well less than half a millionAmericans know their carbon footprint. To me, that is where you start. McKinsey has pointed out that getting below 500 ppmv isn’t really expensive (around 1% of GDP). I can afford 1%. So what gives? A recent global survey by Accenture found that 37% of companies have “no awareness of the level of supply chain emissions”. This is not the progress we need.Here is the consumer problem as I see it. I’ve got 364 other things to worry about. Why do I buy organic milk (and pay more for it)? Because it’s in my face. I can’t avoid the comparison – drink hormones or not. Why did I buy ClimateSmart carbon offsets from PG&E? Because they put it right in my face (in the online bill pay setup). I was forced to think about what I was doing to the environment.I understand that rebuilding P&G supply chains and manufacturing processes will take considerable time. We can’t wait for that however. Why doesn’t P&G put it right in my face? You can relatively easily figure out the footprint of each of your products. Work with Safeway and put that along the product price in the database. Give me the option right at checkout to offset that product. That way you have a cyber equivalent “zero” product. As I am sure you know Safeway is having success putting other good causes in the checkout process (e.g. donating to MS). I think carbon awareness on consumer products is critical. Most people grocery shop at least once/week. With this type of a program, they would be potentially choosing a zero product every week (or at least be forced to consider it). This makes the carbon decision part of their regular thought process. Not only would the actual offsets help, but there would be tremendous spillover.Maybe this is one good first step in the journey.Greg
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gullyfourmyle Posted 3:04 pm
23 Apr 2009
Lovely thoughts Greg, but the reality is this: based on your suggestions, Proctor and Gamble would have no product line. Most companies would fall into that category.An average household of four in North America is responsible for or has enough emissions created on their behalf to require the pollution gobbling activities of 9,000 mature trees to offset their emissions in within the same year they were created. That translates into 2,250 trees per individual. Do you have that many trees on your lot?Every manufacturing company is part of that process as is the individual household. As good a job as you think you're doing; if your house is heated with natural gas you are contributing in another significant way that there is no solution to. Natural Gas is one of the major Global Warming/Climate Change/Chemical Winter components. When we use electricity we have the same problem one step removed. There is no free lunch so far.Until there is a way to stop burning Natural Gas and all other fossil fuels, there will be no end to the destruction of the planet's atmosphere until such times as our economy collapses to the point where the oil companies are put out of business. There are simply too many sources of fossil fuel emissions and too much demand.To make matters worse, companies that use chemicals as part of their production process, which is nearly all companies, emit a certain amount of those chemicals. Proctor and Gamble for example makes all sorts of consumer products and most of them contain lethal chemicals in minute amounts. The air in their buildings however is highly contaminated. That means every time someone goes in or out, significant emissions are released.It would be interesting to see their employee health records made public. I'll bet they are shocking.
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strfish Posted 4:22 pm
24 Apr 2009
I’d like to think that this is a defining opportunity for P&G and all its employees to really make a difference. We are clearly at a societal/economic tipping point. We need organizations like P&G to take the lead. We need them to take marketplace risks and suffer profit hits. That is where they started. We need them to do it again.On the other hand, this is a huge business opportunity for P&G. The packaged goods industry is stagnate. Most of the cost has been squeezed out of the supply chain and the industry has been competing for market share based on packaging and flavor. The industry is at the part of the innovation S-curve where innovation is incremental at best. We need to jump to a new S-curve. (Note that packaging and flavor inherently add carbon to a base product.)I think the new basis of competition will be “impact on the planet”. Over 25 years ago, Michael Lanning (while at McKinsey) defined a powerful business concept and coined a wonderful phrase - the “value proposition”. It said that a consumer of a product will associate a value to a product based on the delivery of a set of perceived benefits.It’s time for an update - value proposition 2.0 (VP2.0). VP2.0 says that value is now benefits plus impact (lack thereof really). Impact itself is not a benefit because the consumer doesn’t get the benefit of a zero-carbon product, we all do. Impact forms a new powerful differentiating factor in the marketplace. A 2006 survey of U.K. consumers by Carbon Trust found that 67% of consumers are more likely to buy a product with a low-carbon footprint. People want zero!I have to crunch some macro numbers, but zero packaged goods would not be much more expensive. It didn’t take me long to find an example. Clifbar just announced a new sports drink called Quench. Working with Native Energy, Clif offset all the CO2 emissions created in the manufacturing and supply chain for Quench. I don’t know for sure, but I think Quench hits the same price point as their carbon-rich competitors. I suspect that Clif may have made changes in the product that made it cheaper to make. They may have been able to do this (e.g. change the packaging) because they could be a little different than their competition, as one of their main points of differential is now zero-impact.I am hoping that this is just the start of a huge trend. That we will start to see more and more and more, zero products. If all the folks at P&G start working in this direction … they could plant a lot of those trees you point of we need.
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strfish Posted 8:36 am
26 Apr 2009
I am estimating carbon footprints for a range of grocery store items. These are difficult and tedious calculations involving a lot of research. I plan to post a list on my blog. In the meantime however I did find a U.S. product with a published carbon footprint. PepsiCo working with Carbon Trust worked out that a Â½ gallon of Tropicana orange juice emits 3.75 lbs of CO2 in its complete lifecycle (field to consumer use and disposal). Based on the cost of carbon offsets from Native Energy (at $14/ton of 0.7 cents/lb), offsetting a Â½ gallon of OJ would cost 2.6 cents. Compared to an on-deal price of $2.39 and a full price of $5.99, offsetting carbon emissions would mean a 0.44% and 1.1% increase in the Â½ gallon of OJ. I can afford that!
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