Eco Governance
Clorox has a very robust eco governance structure that includes eco goals embedded into our corporate business strategy, having an explicit corporate-wide eco strategy in place, and activating that eco strategy with a fully dedicated Eco Office team.
Clorox’s eco governance structure starts with the Nominating and Governance Committee of the Company’s Board of Directors, and includes Clorox’s Executive Committee, who is responsible for delivering the eco goals embedded in the Company’s Corporate Strategy; Clorox’s Eco Office, who is responsible for executing Clorox’s eco priorities; and an extended team of dedicated eco-passionate employees who volunteer their time and energy as part of the Company’s Eco Network help to advance our sustainability agenda.
Eco goals are also cascaded to the Company’s business units and relevant functions to fully leverage the resources of the entire corporation. This includes embedding eco commitments into Business Unit and relevant Functional leader’s incentive compensation plans.
Engagement
A robust environmental sustainability strategy and governance structure is key to ensuring progress toward our environmental sustainability goals. But it is not enough. We also work to actively engage the entire Clorox organization in the Company’s eco goals and initiatives. Everyone has a role to play—not just those who might have environmental sustainability as a formal part of their job.
Putting eco at the heart of how we do business is an explicit commitment we have established and is an integral part of our corporate strategy. It’s embedded in our Corporate Business Strategy and Scorecard, and is further detailed in the Eco Strategy shared with our entire organization.
Clorox corporate level eco engagement is assured by formally specified BOD, Executive Committee and Corporate Eco Office environmental sustainability responsibilities, public corporate eco goals, and Executive and Eco Office management compensation incentives tied to achievement of our company’s eco objectives.
Embedding environmental sustainability into key company processes
Corporate eco priorities are integrated into our individual business units and throughout our company by the following processes:
1. Eco Assessment Process:
Each of our business teams are engaged in contributing to our company’s overall sustainability initiatives by (1) undertaking a comprehensive eco assessment with Clorox’s Eco Office that identifies sustainability issues and opportunities for their individual business, and (2) by committing to take advantage of certain sustainability opportunities via an annual objective setting process with the Eco Office. By establishing this formal Eco Assessment Process, we can systematically evaluate the environmental profile, as well as the environmental footprint reduction and revenue generation opportunities of each of our business units. We’re able to look at the environmental impact across the lifecycle of a product line, identify information gaps in our environmental knowledge base, and evaluate the environmental interests of stakeholder groups as they apply to a given business. An action plan is then recommended to each business unit, which determines how to build the recommended actions into each business unit’s overall plans.
Applying a sustainability lens to each Clorox business via this formal due diligence process jointly undertaken by Clorox’s Eco Office and Clorox’s business teams assures us that we will advance the sustainability of each of our businesses in ways that make sense for each one. And in the aggregate, these eco assessments also enable overall company progress in meeting our corporate eco goals.
2. Annual Eco Commitment Process:
Clorox’s Eco Office works with the company’s business units to develop sustainability commitments that each business is then tasked to achieve. These commitments could include sustainable product improvements, packaging reductions, or process and efficiency improvements that reduce Clorox’s overall environmental footprint.
3. Embedding Environmental Sustainability Into Company’s Core Business Processes:
- Manufacturing: Every Clorox manufacturing facility has specific greenhouse gas, energy use, water use, and solid waste to landfill reduction goals, and progress in meeting these goals is tracked via an eco scorecard.
- Procurement: We’ve embedded sustainability criteria into our core procurement processes, including our Supplier Code of Conduct, supplier selection and business award processes, and our own internal strategic sourcing approach. We are also exploring other ways to facilitate sustainability improvements by our suppliers, including use of a supplier scorecard.
- R&D: We’re embedding eco criteria into our upstream product and package design processes in order to improve the sustainability of both newly designed and redesigned products and packages that we sell into the marketplace.
Product Supply Organization
Clorox’s Product Supply Organization (PSO) is fully engaged in reducing the footprint of our manufacturing and distribution operations, and works to encourage our suppliers to reduce their footprints as well. All of our public GHG, energy use, water use and solid waste reduction goals and underlining reduction plans were developed with Clorox PSO, and Clorox PSO is responsible for the execution of these plans. Goals cascade to individual manufacturing plants via an eco scorecard provided to each plant manager that sets individual plant eco goals. The Clorox Eco Office works together with individual plants to help them establish plans to meet these goals.
Embedding sustainability into our culture and employee mindsets:
Clorox employees are encouraged to participate in our company’s sustainability journey, with our long-term goal of building an environmental sustainability lens into all of our decision making and planning processes, and into the everyday mindset of our employees.
Corporate responsibility, including sustainability initiatives and policies, is a priority topic in our employee communications. Through our employee intranet and corporate responsibility website, employee magazines, informal brown-bag lunches and expert speaker events, we reinforce the message that sustainability is core to how we do business every day.
Clorox is fortunate to have a volunteer team of passionate employees, called the Eco Network, currently operating at over 20 company sites. This volunteer team serves as a forum for new ideas and helps to execute sustainable workplace initiatives. Members of the Eco Network are acknowledged for their voluntary participation.
Commuter Tax Breaks
At Clorox, we encourage our employees to reduce their travel footprint. Clorox employees who take public transportation or ride in a carpool can use pre-tax dollars to save on commuting costs.
Earth Day Celebrations
Celebrating Earth Day is important at Clorox, with celebrations occurring not only at our Bay Area general offices and Technical Center, but throughout our offices around the world. Celebrations include every business site from international subsidiaries to individual manufacturing plants and sales offices.
The Costa Rica team cleaned up a polluted beach.
The Aberdeen, Maryland, team cleaned up the area surrounding our facility's property.
The Clorox Chile Green Team, as part of their 2010 Earth Day celebration,
planted trees and grass at their local facility.
2010 celebrations, organized by each site, included dumpster dives, launches of new recycling programs, eco education programs, eco pledges, site beautification efforts, and community outreach events. And our Burt’s Bees brand team continued its tradition of sponsoring the annual Planet Earth Community Celebration for the entire Raleigh, North Carolina community.
In 2011, around the globe, a record 24 Clorox facilities celebrated Earth Day, shared their passion for being green and helped support our company’s commitment to sustainability.
This year, teams focused on the three R’s of waste reduction: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Eco Network teams used an Earth Day kit sponsored by the Eco Office, which shared a number of our eco accomplishments to date and reminded everyone of our company’s future eco goals, including our commitment to reduce waste by 20% by 2013.
