Consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble Co. is out with expanded sustainability goals, including a desire to double the company's use of recycled resin in plastic packaging.
The Cincinnati-based company issued its latest report covering a variety of goals, indicating it is guided by 12 established environmental sustainability goals that includes the use of 100 percent recycled or renewable materials for all products and packaging.
The company, in those goals, also has a desire to have zero consumer and manufacturing waste going to landfills.
P&G, in its latest report, indicates that the company believes its will achieve its previously stated goal of reducing packaging by 20 percent per unit of production by 2020.
“Our packaging reduction efforts have continued to deliver cost savings from avoided material usage while still ensuring that our packaging protects the product and meets consumers' needs,” P&G states in its sustainability report.
“While there are practical limits on how far packaging can be reduced, our continued focus on design optimization makes us confident that we will achieve our goal of reducing packaging by 20 percent per consumer use by 2020,” the report continues.
P&G reports that, since 2010, the company has reduced packaging by 4.5 percent per consumer use.
Based on confidence that the 2020 goal will be reached, the company now is eyeing the goal of doubling the use of recycled resin in plastic packaging. P&G also wants to ensure that 90 percent of its packaging is “recyclable or that programs are in place to create the ability to recycle it.”
P&G offered up this example regarding the use of less packaging and the use of more recycled plastic content:
The company's Gillette Venus & Olay razor package is made from PET, recycled PET and paperboard, is recyclable and uses 26 percent less packaging in the manufacturing process, the company said.
The packages also are now more densely packed for distribution, which cuts transportation costs and carbon emissions, P&G reported.
P&G also said the company wants to replace petroleum-derived raw materials with renewable materials across the company's supply chain “as cost and scale permit.”
“We're committed to grow P&G's business responsibly,” said Martin Riant, P&G executive sponsor of sustainability in a statement. “We want to create industry-leading value for consumers and shareholders while conserving resources, protecting the environment, and improving quality of life for those who need it most. P&G's growth objectives and sustainability goals are mutually interdependent.”
The sustainability report is available at http://www.pg.com/en_US/sustainability/index.shtml.