Energy

Energy conservation

For over a decade, we’ve set goals to conserve energy and reduce emissions. Since 2008, we’ve invested in more energy-efficient equipment and employed more eco-efficient manufacturing practices. That’s allowed us to reduce our energy consumption 27% on an intensity basis (per case of product sold) and 9% on an absolute basis between 2007 and 2018, representing a reduction of 72,000 megawatt-hours, over our last two goal periods.

With the launch of our IGNITE strategy, we’ve continued to report annual energy use and conduct third-party assurance, as disclosed on our Sustainability Data Hub. We’ll continue pursuing energy efficiency opportunities with the goal of achieving or exceeding our 2018 baseline levels. As an example of this commitment, our absolute energy consumption decreased 6% between our 2018 baseline and 2024 and continues to be below our 2018 baseline on an intensity basis.

North America renewable energy

We signed a 12-year, 70–megawatt virtual power purchase agreement with Enel Green Power North America in 2019 to purchase renewable energy beginning in 2021. Representing about half of Clorox’s 100% renewable electricity goal for operations in the U.S. and Canada, this agreement along with renewable energy credits, or RECs, purchased from the open market helped us achieve that goal by 2021, four years earlier than our original plan. 

A second VPPA, a 12-year, 47-megawatt agreement for a new wind farm in Oklahoma with Enel North America’s renewable energy business line, Enel Green Power, began producing renewable energy for Clorox in January 2023. Each VPPA was expected to deliver about half of Clorox’s 100% renewable electricity goal for U.S. and Canadian operations annually, eliminating the need to purchase RECs from the open market. Longer term, we are committed to maintaining this goal through VPPAs and other market purchases of RECs as necessary. U.S. and Canada electricity consumption represented 88% of global electricity consumption and 50% of global energy consumption — including electricity and fuels — in calendar year 2024. 

Our VPPAs allow us to support the expansion of renewable energy infrastructure in the U.S. Additionally, we invested in renewable energy at two of our facilities. In fiscal year 2017, we installed solar panels at our Fairfield, California, plant and at our regional distribution center in Aberdeen, Maryland. Both solar panel arrays were built with a third-party provider as power purchase agreements, or PPAs. That means we didn’t spend company money to build these projects, and the facilities buy the power produced from the third party instead of from the utility. While both arrays generate renewable energy, we do not claim the use of renewable energy or include the clean energy attributes of the Aberdeen regional distribution center in the calculation of our GHG emissions because the third party retains the REC rights in the PPA.

Visit our Sustainability Data Hub to view progress against our sustainability goals and other sustainability metrics over time, as well as our environmental sustainability data archive.

Lighting Retrofits

In the early 2010s, we began to equip our manufacturing and distribution facilities with energy-efficient T5/T8 fluorescent lighting. In 2014, our engineering standards changed to specify LED lighting, which is more energy-efficient than fluorescent lighting, for all interior and exterior new construction and retrofits, and we consequently converted many of the initial T5/T8 upgrades to LED. In the early 2000s many of our plants and distribution centers transitioned their lighting to LED.

Our facilities also completed energy assessments to further identify and reduce energy usage from their operating equipment and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, and implemented improved operating procedures. As an example, in 2024 our Atlanta plant worked with a consulting firm to systematically evaluate their energy usage. The team used acoustic technolgies to identify and repair leaking air lines, successfully reducing energy consumption from their air compression system. We are looking at rolling this program out to other locations.