Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110
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Our Future Is Clean: ACI announces bold industry goals to shape a cleaner, healthier world
The American Cleaning Institute has published its 2019 Sustainability Report, which details its new strategy calling on the cleaning products industry to take bolder, collective action to achieve a cleaner world.
Grounded in the key aspirations we all have for our society, ACI's sustainability strategy aims to unite industry efforts for greater impact across four critical goals:
* Increase transparency
* Reduce emissions
* Value nature
* Contribute positively
"We're pushing our members to think bigger, be fearless and implement ever-more innovative solutions," says Melissa Hockstad, ACI president and CEO. "Our new strategy combines our core strength of collaboration with a commitment to doing our part as an industry to address the sustainability challenges facing our globe."
The ACI's 2019 Sustainability Report details these new goals and how its more than 140 member companies have already started taking action. For instance, ACI members are:
* Helping buyers choose products that are best for them by sharing more information about their products and practices through digital means
* Shifting to preferred products and ingredients that meet third-party human and environmental safety requirements
* Managing and reducing the use of hazardous chemicals through approaches like chemical footprinting
* Setting operational greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets that support the ambition of the Paris Agreement
* Setting goals, developing products and pushing forward initiatives to increase use of cold water in laundry
* Joining global alliances to clean up our world and limit plastic waste
* Utilising new circular approaches to packaging and simplifying the consumer experience
Sundar Raman, president, Fabric Care, North America, and P&G Professional, Global, Procter & Gamble, and Chair of ACI's Board of Directors, says of the initiative: "A meaningful commitment to operating sustainably must reach every corner of a company and every component of the supply chain.
"As highlighted in this Report, ACI is stepping up on sustainability by uniting the industry around a shared vision that can move us collectively towards a brighter future for all."
Supporting this new strategy, ACI has also announced 'Our Future Is Clean', a new campaign that will launch during National Cleaning Week, which In 2020, will be observed Sunday, 22nd March through Saturday, 28th March.
The campaign will highlight how the cleaning products supply chain is working towards a clean, sustainable world, promoting health and wellbeing, and seeking to make a real difference through bold commitments and actions.
"Effective climate action is needed on many fronts, including supporting customers to be environmentally conscious, creating innovative, low-impact products and driving down manufacturing greenhouse gas emissions," says the ACI.
Across cleaning product formulators, operational emissions have fallen 37% in the last decade, while renewable energy use has risen 19%, according to data collected by ACI.
In 2018, 54% of ACI members published their previous year's GHG emissions through some form of public report or reporting system. Some 44% have set targets to reduce GHG emissions, improve energy efficiency or increase the use of renewable energy, while 18 companies have taken further steps to align commitments within science-based limits or are seeking to power their operations from 100% renewable sources.
Within the next year, more information than ever will be available for cleaning products sold across the US as a result of new laws. This includes full lists of product ingredients, details about fragrances and additional scientifically focused safety information, like what is currently provided for more than 500 individual ingredients in ACI's Ingredient Safety Initiative.
With the increasing scarcity of natural resources, ACI acknowledges the need for a new type of thinking in an effort to move globally toward a more circular economy. Wherever possible, the industry must seek to reduce, reuse or recycle in order to avoid depleting the planet's natural resources.
ACI companies are combating natural resource depletion, pollution and waste through new product forms, packaging redesign and collective efforts to eliminate problematic or unnecessary packaging and prevent plastic pollution in our oceans.
Some 32% of ACI formulators have a goal to reach 100% recyclable packaging, and many are modifying labels to helping consumers recycle more easily.
ACI supports the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which provide a clear path to make a real impact for good across the globe - in health, hygiene, human rights, education, inclusion and equality for all.
Companies aligning their business priorities and sustainability strategies with the SDGs is a critical step. An impressive 43 ACI members are already aligning their strategies with the SDGs or are reporting their impact.
Melissa Hockstad says: "With our wide membership and their vast consumer base, ACI is ideally positioned to unite members around a shared sustainability vision. Together, we are taking the courageous steps needed to help shape our planet for decades, maybe centuries to come."
For further details on ACI's sustainability strategy and goals and to download the 2019 Sustainability Report, visit:
12th September 2019