Consumer Behavior Change Innovation & Technology

P&G Brands Aim to Expand Leadership in Responsible Consumption

At SB’19 Paris this week, P&G presented a forward-looking framework, including innovation strategies that will inspire and enable responsible consumption for the five billion consumers served by the company’s many brands each day.

Published 5 years ago | About a 5 minute read

Image: Ariel (via YouTube)

This week, the Procter & Gamble Company detailed the roadmap and actions its leading brands are taking to increase positive impact on society and the environment through its “Ambition 2030” criteria. On Wednesday at SB’19 Paris conference, the company presented a forward-looking framework, including innovation and communication strategies that aim to inspire and enable responsible consumption for the five billion consumers served by P&G each day. P&G brands including Pampers®, Ariel® and Herbal Essences® are progressing in adopting this framework with actions and commitments to help accelerate sustainable lifestyles.

“Consumers are no longer willing to compromise performance for living sustainably and they expect brands to take meaningful action in solving some of the most complex challenges facing the world,” said Marc Pritchard, P&G’s Chief Brand Officer. “This is why P&G is focused on reinventing marketing, to use the reach and voice of our brands as a force for good and a force for growth. We want our brands to be growing and creating value while having a measurable, long-term, positive impact on society and the environment.”

The Brand 2030 criteria are spread over two areas, each outlining concrete actions brands can take to become a “force for good and force for growth”:

Brand Ambition — where brands place strategic social or environmental commitments at the heart of their consumer experience, helping to address a societal challenge where they can uniquely and meaningfully contribute.
Brand Fundamentals — where brands innovate across product and packaging, leverage their voice to promote social and environmental sustainability and are transparent about their ingredients and safety science while reducing their supply chain impacts.

“We engaged with several external stakeholders to help craft the criteria. We wanted to create criteria that would make SDG12 tangible for brands, holding them accountable to drive progress towards taking responsible consumption to the next level,” said Virginie Helias, P&G’s Chief Sustainability Officer. “With our brands, we are serving five billion people worldwide, giving us the unique opportunity and responsibility to not only delight people through superior product performance, but to also promote conversations, influence attitudes, change behaviours and make sustainable lifestyles at scale a global reality.”

Several of P&G’s leading brands are already adopting the criteria:

The Ariel Ambition is to re-invent a better clean to consume 50 percent less resources in key impact areas such as energy and water by driving product, service and packaging innovation. The Ariel Fundamentals include its latest packaging commitments, as announced today, such as striving to make all its packaging recyclable by 2022 and to reduce 30 percent plastic packaging by 2025. In addition, Ariel is using its voice to help shape a future of equals through campaigns such as “Partage des taches” in France and “Share the Load” in India, which support the idea of men and women equally sharing housekeeping tasks.

The Herbal Essences Ambition is to enable everyone to experience the positive power of nature and to support biodiversity for the benefit of people and the planet. Beyond this, Herbal Essences is leading the way in sharing comprehensive information about its ingredients, disclosing its 4-step safety process and being recognized by PETA as a cruelty-free brand. Herbal Essences bio:renew is the first global hair care brand to have its botanicals endorsed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, a world leading authority on plants. Herbal Essences is also leveraging its voice to promote the launch of packaging designed to help the visually impaired; and following in the footsteps of Head & Shoulders to release beach plastic bottles in the US, its largest market.

The Pampers Ambition is to give millions of babies the opportunity for happy healthy development, collaborating with healthcare professionals, parents and NGOs. Pampers is introducing its ‘7 Acts for Good,’ including the following concrete actions:

Keep innovating towards more sustainable diapering solutions to progress towards 30 percent less1 diapering materials used per baby over their diapering time.
By innovating and using more effective materials, the brand has reduced the average weight of its diapers by 18 percent2 already in the past 3 years, with the same trusted dryness.
Lead recycling for diapers and wipes and launch recycling facilities in 3 cities by 2021.

In partnership with UNICEF, Pampers has helped eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus in 24 countries. In March 2019, one more country – Chad — has now eliminated this disease, resulting in an estimated 880,000 newborn lives4 saved since 2006.

“The Brand 2030 criteria demonstrate leadership for brand leaders by defining what it means for an individual brand to enable responsible consumption. They ensure a thorough, long-term integration of meaningful and measurable social and environmental impacts into the overall brand strategy and experience — versus a singular brand-sponsored, cause-marketing initiative or activating just a slice of the marketing mix,” said KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz, CEO of Sustainable Brands.

1 Vs. a typical disposable diaper
2 Vs. Pampers most sold diapers in 2016.
3 The recycling technology was invented by Fater, a JV of P&G and Angelini (which makes Pampers in Italy).
4 Based on WHO and UNICEF estimated figures as of Feb 2019