ACI Working to Clean Up Cleaning with Sustainable Feedstocks Initiative

We spoke with American Cleaning Institute president & CEO Melissa Hockstad about its collaborative work to improve value chains for chemical feedstocks for everyday products.

Sponsored Content | / This article is sponsored by American Cleaning Institute | Published 5 days ago | About a 5 minute read

Image: Sustainable Feedstocks Initiative

At first mention, the idea of “feedstocks” might not correlate to the everyday cleaning products most of us use. However, these raw materials are the literal foundation that build some of our most used products — including bar soap, laundry detergent and other household cleaners.

“These ingredients ultimately end up in consumer products,” American Cleaning Institute (ACI) president and CEO Melissa Hockstad told Sustainable Brands® (SB).

“Feedstock” is a broad foundational term used across a number of industries. But for the cleaning business, ingredients such as petroleum, palm oil and other oil-based products create the base for surfactants — a key part of how cleaning products do their job. A 2023 American Chemical Society report estimates that more than 15 million tons of surfactants are used worldwide annually, and up to 60 percent of them find their way into various aquatic environments.

Last February, ACI launched the Sustainable Feedstocks Initiative to bring more clarity to the supply chain around these feedstocks and to help partner companies find new and less environmentally impactful ways to create the key cleaning properties of their goods without sacrificing performance. The initiative has led to the development of a roadmap that helps member companies meet goals that support not only better environmental practices but their own business goals.

The initiative has steadily gained popularity since its launch and has become a key tenet of ACI’s sustainability program. We caught up with Hockstad ahead of a deeper dive on the subject this week at SB ‘24 San Diego to learn more about the initiative and how companies have found value in participating.

What kinds of companies have signed onto the Sustainable Feedstocks Initiative? Are there everyday cleaning products connected to this supply chain effort that average consumers would recognize?

Melissa Hockstad: Several companies are a part of the initiative, including Henkel — which produces all, Dial, Purex and Sun (among other products) and has a global workforce of around 48,000. Other ACI members that are involved aren’t necessarily household names but provide ingredients like surfactants, enzymes and fragrances to cleaning product formulators and brand owners.

Are there particular product certifications that materials found in this supply chain help support?

MH: We provide recommendations for each feedstock. Depending on the feedstock, there are a variety of certifications that help guide members. The feedstocks with available certifications are palm oil, coconut oil, sugar and paper fiber (used in wipes), including:

Where has this initiative made the most progress in creating a better raw material supply chain? Where does work remain?

MH: Oil-derived surfactants make up a large volume of cleaning products. Most of the members joining the initiative are moving to certified, plant-based alternatives like coconut and palm oils as a potential way of reducing the impact of making their products. For example, 60 percent of members have committed to using RSPO-certified palm oil, and many are aiming to reach 100 percent usage throughout their supply chains.

What are some examples of the initiative’s impact so far?

MH: Chemical and compound provider Evonik built the world’s first industrial-scale production plant to produce rhamnolipids — a type of surfactant that’s created through fermentation of fully renewable and natural feedstock. This particular rhamnolipid uses sugar as the only feedstock, cultivated from corn that’s grown near the production plant. The company expects that this surfactant can reduce the need for polymers, builders and stabilizers in product production; and it eliminates the need for solvents. This all leads to less energy use throughout the production process.

Another example is ingredient supplier Novonesis, which has been using advanced biotechnology tools to source and refine natural enzymes that make laundry cleaning products better while drawing fewer resources. The company is working towards wide-scale adoption of bio-based ingredients that work just as well in cold water, and follow a more compact formulation that makes the final product easier to transport and use.

Lastly, ingredient and fragrance supplier IFF has spent more than a decade working on ‘Designed Enzymatic Biomaterials,’ which could potentially replace fossil fuel-based cleaning polymers in the long term. These are already in early use across home care, personal care and industrial applications. This work is happening in tandem with more education around using efficient dishwashers and creating better enzyme-based cleaners that perform just as well during a normal dishwasher’s ‘eco’ cycle.

How successful has implementation of the Screening Level Life Cycle Assessment (tracking material longevity across high-priority cleaning products) been so far?

MH: We have created a database of screening level LCAs for common cleaning products ingredients. This is available to our member companies to use. We see the database as a way for them to examine how changes in their procurement practices alter their environmental impacts (like going from a petroleum-based source to a plant-based source). To prevent climate or carbon tunnel vision, we include six impact categories for all of the ingredients: climate change, water consumption, fossil fuel use, land use, mineral resource scarcity and freshwater eutrophication (oxygen depletion in a body of water). Oftentimes, a decrease in one impact area may lead to an increase in another. By better understanding what shifting to different raw materials means to your environmental impact, you can better address those impacts more holistically. We also hope this tool increases the use of Life Cycle thinking in the cleaning products supply chain and encourages our member company to take on the work of analyzing their own product carbon footprints. With this work, we hope to move collectively towards a more sustainable cleaning product supply chain.