In 2011, Proctor & Gamble (P&G) opened its first U.S. manufacturing plant in 40 years in Box Elder County, Utah—and earned its first-ever LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for an Employee Resource Center constructed on that site.
The Cincinnati-based consumer products giant—which touches 4.4 million people worldwide each day with such products as Tide, Pantene, Bounty, Pringles, Iams, and Duracell—says that the silver LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) won’t be its last. P&G currently is pursuing LEED certification for plants in China and Indonesia, as well as for its Singapore Innovation Center. And the company has pledged to earn certification for all new sites that already are in design phase or early construction.
“We are pleased to announce this first LEED-certified office building for P&G globally,” said Yannis Skoufalos, P&G global product supply officer in a statement. “This is the [beginning of] our journey to certify all new P&G sites. We are committed to the sustainable design of our facilities, and earning LEED certification is a great way to ensure that we are applying the best design and construction practices to our buildings.”
The Box Elder site is now achieving notable environmental performance in the areas of water, waste, and energy—specifically:
- Water: The plant is reducing the amount of water needed for operations by recycling water internally.
- Waste: The factory is minimizing solid waste and increasing reuse offsite. As a result, it is on track to achieve the status as the P&G Family Care division’s first site to achieve zero manufacturing waste to landfill.
- Energy: Innovative features, such as naturally illuminated production and warehouse spaces, make Box Elder an energy efficient site
These accomplishments at Box Elder serve to advance the five-year goals set by Proctor & Gamble in 2007 for its environmental sustainability program. The company’s 2012 target is a 20 percent reduction in energy, waste, carbon, and water usage at its 180 plants worldwide. Since 2007, P&G has achieved a reduction per unit of production of 16 percent in energy; 57 percent in waste, 12 percent in CO2 and 22 percent in water usage.
That’s good progress, by any measure. But Proctor & Gamble wants to lead the way in more areas than LEED and that includes making all packaging with recycled or renewable materials and powering all manufacturing plants with renewable energy.
Delivering on this promise is a complicated issue, so last year company CEO Robert A. (“Bob”) McDonald called in some top guns in the environmental and innovation sectors for advice and assistance. In July 2011, 20 P&G managers and engineers gathered in Cincinnati for a two-day brainstorming session guided by George Favaloro, managing partner at Viridis Strategy Group, an environmental consultancy based in Waltham, Massachusetts; and Karl Ulrich, dean of Innovation at The University of Pennsylvania Wharton School in Philadelphia, and author of a book on innovation tournaments.
Favaloro and Ulrich invited seven outside experts to guide the P&G professionals through their own innovation tournament, with the goal of developing out-of-the-box sustainability plans for the company’s most energy intensive plants— in Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Mariscala, Mexico; and Kuantan, Malaysia.
According to Ulrich—who has contributed to an article on P&G’s initiative to knowledge@wharton—to begin the process, P&G's professionals delivered in-depth briefings via webinars, so that the external experts could frame realistic, tailored recommendations. The experts then submitted 150 ideas, which the internal and external teams together winnowed down to 45 via online voting.
By the time the teams met in person, they were primed for action. While most of the ideas that came out of the innovation tournament are proprietary to P&G, it’s safe to say that the company is working on feasibility plans to transform the original concepts into reality and to consider at which other locations they might be executed worldwide.
With the sustainability accomplishments of 2011 in place, Proctor & Gamble is determined to drive progress during 2012—working toward LEED certification at its newer facilities and assessing green energy scenarios at every site. The company already has mapped solar, geothermal and wind options, and as a result of the innovation tournament brainstorming— will now develop biomass.
Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO East 2012, happening right now from Jan. 31-Feb. 3 2012, in Miami, FL. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO registration click here.
Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO. Follow us on Twitter.
Cheryl Kaften is an accomplished communicator who has written for consumer and corporate audiences. She has worked extensively for MasterCard (News - Alert) Worldwide, Philip Morris USA (Altria), and KPMG, and has consulted for Estee Lauder and the Philadelphia Inquirer Newspapers. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Jamie Epstein
