Delivering Irresistible Superiority That Is Sustainable
We are all connected, and our actions — big and small — make an impact. For Earth Day on April 22, Procter & Gamble deepens its commitment to do more and do better for the planet we call home. This decade is a critical window of opportunity to accelerate our progress, and we can only do this if we come together as companies, brands and people.
At P&G, we integrate sustainability into how we operate and how we grow our business – not only during Earth Day, but year-round. Our goal is to give consumers an irresistibly superior experience that is also sustainable across the vectors of product, packaging, communication, go-to-market and consumer and retailer value. When consumers choose our products, we strive to provide the superior performance they expect and enable them to make a more sustainable choice. We want to provide superior products that conserve energy, save water or reduce plastic, making responsible consumption irresistible.
We continuously innovate to bring this vision to life with our brands and our partners. Brands like Tide, Gillette, Head & Shoulders, Cascade, Crest and Oral B enable more sustainable choices with no trade-offs in performance. For example, hand-washing dishes can use up to four gallons of water every two minutes with a running faucet but using Cascade in an Energy Star-certified dishwasher uses less than four gallons of water in an entire cycle. That’s why switching to the dishwasher and using a product designed to let consumers skip the pre-rinse (like Cascade) can save up to 100 gallons of water every week. Superior products that get the job done with less energy and less water can make a big impact.
We are also innovating our product packaging to be more sustainable. Gillette’s new packaging includes plastic-free, recycled paperboard packaging and a pulp paper tray, which is not only more sustainable but also much easier to open. With the launch of this new packaging across Gillette and Venus, we estimate to save the equivalent of 875 metric tons of plastic globally, which equates to over 85 million plastic water bottles. These are just a few of the ways that P&G’s brands are committed to helping consumers make environmentally friendly choices with no trade-offs in performance.
Our retailers are essential to the impact that we make, and we work closely with our them to create tailored programs to help shoppers on their sustainability journeys. For example, with Walmart, we launched “For the Planet,” an interactive shopping and educational experience that walks users through the ways they can make the switch to more sustainable choices in their homes. At the end of the experience, shoppers can add sustainable product choices from brands like Tide, Cascade, Dawn, Crest, Pantene and Swiffer directly to their carts and eventually to their homes. In partnership with Kroger’s Harris Teeter and the Arbor Day Foundation, we aim to plant 25,000 trees in North and South Carolina. We planted 10,000 trees in Virginia and North Carolina in 2021 and we are raising the bar this year: when shoppers purchase $50 worth of P&G products, we commit to plant 10 trees.
These efforts come together in P&G’s “It’s Our Home” campaign, which is our commitment to use the voice, reach, innovation and expertise of P&G and its brands to make sustainability irresistible. At the heart of this campaign is a short film (view here) that shows how small changes at home can add up to a big positive impact for our planet. The film is based on a study conducted by P&G in the U.S. last year, which found that 72% of people want to do more to be sustainable at home, but fewer than half of people make environmentally conscious choices at home as often as they’d like. For most people, “not knowing how” is the biggest barrier to acting sustainably. The same study revealed that nearly 80% of consumers said they expect the brands they buy to help them live a more environmentally conscious lifestyle.
Every action we take – as companies, brands, and individuals – will make the world a better place. P&G is proud to work alongside our consumers, retailers and partners to be both a force for growth and a force for good. Together on Earth Day and every day, we can protect our planet, our common home, now and for generations to come.
About the Author:Monica Turner leads Procter & Gamble’s North America business, the company’s largest and most profitable region, which accounts for 47% of net sales. Her organization serves 370 million consumers in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, spanning sales offices, technical centers, manufacturing plants and mixing centers across the region. Turner joined P&G in 1987, progressing in sales, strategy and planning roles. In her prior role as president of sales for North America, she led market growth and value creation across 10 categories and 65 brands.
Turner also serves on P&G’s corporate women’s leadership team and is the executive leader of the global African Ancestry Leadership Network. She is also a board trustee of the University of Cincinnati and was the board chair of NextUp (formerly the Network of Executive Women). In partnership with NextUp, she developed the Open Doors program to support, develop and advance multicultural women in P&G. She has also been recognized as one of the Top 100 Most Influential Women in Corporate America by Savoy Magazine and as a Woman of Excellence by the National Association of Female Executives.