Collaborative sustainability: Colgate-Palmolive's strategy

The products manufactured by Colgate-Palmolive are found in the kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms of millions of homes across the globe.

This omnipresence, combined with its reputation as one of the world’s most trusted brands, provides a platform to drive positive environmental change on a mass scale.

It’s not a responsibility the organisation is shying away from, as European Sustainability Manager, Cathleen Siemen, explains.

Colgate-Palmolive has set itself the target of becoming net zero in its operations by 2040. What will be key to achieving that goal?

Approximately 90% of our footprint lies within the usage and end-of-life phase of our products. Raising the efficiencies of our supply chains, our sourcing, our factories is an on-going priority, but it’s so important that we take our customers and our consumers with us on this journey.

We’re exploring ways to empower consumers to make more sustainable choices and better understand what they can do to reduce their environmental impact. That could be through using recyclable, compostable and minimal packaging or reengineering our products.

It’s also about presenting the right information as to how to dispose of the product correctly and to raise awareness around saving water and carbon emissions.

Through our Colgate brand, we reach more households than any other brand in the world. The ability that provides in terms of driving change on a home-by-home level, we see that as almost our superpower.

If we succeed in helping every one of our consumers to make small changes, those changes will combine to have a huge positive impact for the planet.

The scope and scale of transformation required combined with the pace at which this transformation must happen has led many to reconsider the role of collaboration. What does collaboration mean for Colgate-Palmolive?

Collaboration is absolutely vital. One of our biggest recent projects, and achievements, was developing the recyclable tube. Billions of tubes end up in landfill every year, cosmetics, personal care, food products. What we have created is opportunity to change that. It represents a huge breakthrough and it wouldn’t have been possible without collaboration.

Critically, this project isn’t about us, it’s about something bigger. Which is why we’re sharing this technology with all other companies, including our competitors, to initiative a global shift. Our ambition is to have all tubes, not just toothpaste, be recycled in practice and at scale.

Collaboration doesn’t end once a new product or technology is developed and brought to market. The effort will all be for naught if the material or item isn’t accepted by the recycling infrastructure, if that infrastructure doesn’t exist, if consumers don’t put the finished item in the correct bin, if packaging manufacturers aren’t able to provide the technology at scale. That’s why ongoing collaboration across the entire product lifecycle is key in so many aspects of sustainability.

You note the importance of providing the information required for consumers to make sustainable choices, yet labels already contain so much information. What can be done to ensure consumers engage with sustainability messaging?

It’s an ongoing challenge, one I’m not sure we’ve completely solved yet. It’s about achieving a balance. Sustainability message needs to be prominently displayed, but not at the expense of the product’s core functionality.

For toothpaste, for example, you still want consumers to quickly recognise why one product is superior to another and what specific capabilities does a brand offer, i.e. sensitivity or whitening.

Sustainability credentials may not be the ultimate factor in their purchasing decision, so it’s a balance of not overloading the product or packaging, ensuring the key sustainability message is to the point and aligned to the overall brand, and leveraging the digital space through QR codes, links and websites to provide additional information for those seeking it.

QR codes, in particular, have had quite the revival in the wake of the pandemic and consumers have become much more comfortable with what they are and how to use them.

Recycling infrastructure varies significantly within countries and from country to country. How much influence does Colgate-Palmolive have in helping to create a more standardised waste landscape?

Again, this is all about collaboration. If we were the only company switching to a recyclable tube, then probably not much. That’s why we need to achieve a critical mass where all tubes are using similar recyclable technology in order to incentivise the creation of appropriate infrastructure.

Sharing information and collaborating, especially with competitors, can be challenging. Everyone wants to help drive change, but at the same time you still want your company to retain its competitive advantage.

Trade associations have always existed and, of course, we have a common set of interests beyond sustainability; but our need to achieve net zero has elevated collaboration to a whole new level.

The European Union is seeking to unify the design of chargers for electrical devices, rather than the dozens on the market we have today. That has the potential to eliminate so much waste, and chargers are a great example of something that probably isn’t the USP of your product. You can still offer different functionality to your competitors, while all using the same charger.

We need to identify more of those examples and standardise, while still competing on the product, on quality, on functionality, on the buying experience.

Colgate-Palmolive has a growing list of environmental awards and accolades; what’s the next big challenge you’re working to achieve?

As a marketer, I’m interested in exploring the intention-action gap, the difference between what people say they would like to do and what they actually do. Better understanding that will help in empowering people to make more sustainable choices, to live more sustainable lives.

Linked to that is the packaging conundrum. In our category, consumer goods, it’s really hard to eliminate packaging entirely. So, how we deliver products in a format is just as convenient and as safe and healthy as before, but in a more sustainable way.

Pushing the boundaries of sustainable packaging means making sustainability an integral part of product development, not an after-thought. A great example of that is Colgate Link, our first manual toothbrush with replaceable heads and an aluminium handle.

Not only does that reduce the amount of plastic in the product itself, it also reduces the size of the packaging for subsequent purchases or refills. The replacement heads use 80% less plastic compared to a regular plastic manual toothbrush.

What’s the most challenging aspect of sustainable transformation?

Embedding a value for sustainability. You want people to make choices that create long-term change, the benefits of which may not be seen for decades. At the same time, people want to know what’s in it for them right now and how this is relevant to them and their life.

So, how do we motivate people to question things around them and change their behaviour without having to offer an immediate solution? It's not buying this product suddenly solves climate change. It's not as simple as that. How do you simplify sustainability issues without greenwashing? How do you motivate people to get behind big organisational or global targets?

That’s a great question, how do you?

Through the power of ‘we.’ We need to work together in order to achieve these goals. Over the last decade, leadership has become less hierarchical and more collaborative. Our focus now is on inspiring people behind a purpose and empowering them to deliver on it. Giving them the responsibility and freedom to take ownership and innovate new solutions.