Ann Tracy has championed methods that marry effectivity and environmental objectives for many of her three-decade profession with Colgate-Palmolive — throughout the toothpaste market chief’s manufacturing, customer support, logistics and provide chain.
As we speak, her job is to place Colgate-Palmolive’s net-zero agenda as a catalyst for innovation and business development.
“The brand new period we’re getting into into for sustainability is absolutely doubling down now on the enterprise case, on the worth creation side,” Tracy mentioned within the newest episode of Local weather Pioneers.
When Tracy was named Colgate-Palmolive’s first chief sustainability officer in February 2020 she reported to the provision chain group. In 2022, nevertheless, her crew was made a part of the expansion and technique crew, which manages the business facet of the enterprise.
With that shift, the $20 billion firm started to think about emissions and plastic discount commitments as elements of its development plan. A key mantra of its CEO: “We will do something, however we will’t do all the pieces.” Tracy is a part of two dozen senior leaders who make selections about what issues.
“I believe that permits me to ensure that sustainability stays constructed into the choices that we’re making,” she mentioned. “To not say there aren’t tradeoffs and it’s not powerful, significantly on this atmosphere. However I believe that’s necessary.”
Keep the course
Colgate-Palmolive’s power effectivity measures, for instance, have had a big effect on bills — a financial savings of at the very least $1 billion in electrical energy prices because it started measuring this impression virtually 20 years in the past, based on Tracy. “For us, that’s a major quantity,” she mentioned. “It’s a major quantity for anybody.”
She famous three profitable techniques:
- A program that allocates at the very least 5 % of producing capital expenditures for power discount, water conservation and waste administration measures.
- The Power Treasure Hunt initiative, which sends 30 to 50 individuals to websites with the aim of figuring out enchancment alternatives; 2,500 initiatives have been surfaced via 2023.
- A crew devoted to creating instruments and sources that scale profitable discount measures to allow them to be utilized in a number of places.
Colgate-Palmolive’s dedication, validated by the Science Based mostly Targets initiative, is to be internet zero by 2040 — making it one of many few shopper merchandise firms with an accepted dedication. Quick-term objectives coming due in 2025 embrace a 20 % emissions discount for its personal operations and for bought power (Scope 1 and a couple of), and a 20 % reduce within the footprint for bought items and companies (Scope 4).
The baseline yr for each targets is 2020. It’s unclear whether or not Colgate-Palmolive will ship — its emissions elevated barely in 2023, in contrast with 2022. “We’re studying that our journey is not going to seemingly comply with a strictly linear path,” the corporate mentioned in its 2024 local weather transition plan.
The identical is true of the corporate’s plastic discount targets; Colgate-Palmolive had aimed to make all of its packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by the tip of 2025. As of Dec. 31, 2023, it had managed about 90 %.
Nonetheless, Tracy isn’t wavering about the place the corporate will land on the finish of 2025 and whether or not it wants to regulate its 2030 priorities. “We’re staying true to our targets,” she mentioned. “We’re not saying any dial-backs.”
Colgate-Palmolive is aiming for a 42 % emissions discount by 2030 for each its personal operations and bought items and companies.
Swords versus shields
Colgate-Palmolive divides its local weather, nature and waste administration commitments into two classes: “shields,” that are compliance-driven, and “swords,” which heart on potential for company worth creation.
“Shields are the factor we’ve to get down due to taxes, charges, reputational threat, laws,” Tracy defined. “Swords are the place we wish to lead. We’re fairly choiceful about the place we wish to lead.”
For example of the latter, Tracy pointed to Colgate-Palmolive’s zero-waste technique, which commits the corporate to manufacturing all of its merchandise at websites licensed underneath the U.S. Inexperienced Constructing Council’s Complete Useful resource Use and Effectivity (TRUE) initiative by the tip of 2025.
The TRUE certification requires that websites divert at the very least 90 % of waste from landfills or incineration. By the tip of 2023, 80 % of Colgate-Palmolive’s manufacturing services had earned the designation.
“We’re not that nice at placing arduous numbers towards it,” Tracy mentioned, “however the amount of cash that saves throughout all websites which are turning into licensed is critical.”
Colgate-Palmolive’s introduction of a recyclable, squeezable toothpaste tube in 2019 — which began as a plastics-reduction aim — is one other technique that each reinforces the model’s worth as an innovator in toothpaste and cuts production-related emissions and water consumption.
The one-material design is now used for greater than 90 % of its toothpaste manufacturers, decreasing emissions associated to supplies manufacturing by 26 % per tube. Uncooked supplies add as much as greater than half of Colgate-Palmolive’s product design and procurement emissions. “If you consider the truth that we make near 10 billion tubes yearly, that’s loads of carbon profit,” Tracy mentioned.
The design can be utilized by Colgate-Palmolive rivals, as a result of the corporate opted to share its recipe. The thought is to persuade recyclers to spice up recycling charges for this packaging — about 20 billion toothpaste tubes made out of multi-layered plastic are thrown out yearly. Colgate-Palmolive accounts for nearly half of that.
Proceed with ambition — and warning
As Colgate-Palmolive’s crew takes inventory of its 2025 progress, Tracy mentioned the corporate’s focus might be on selecting “formidable however achievable” pathways to succeed in the 2030 objectives. “We’re doubling down on the targets that must have worth drivers or that must drive worth creation,” she mentioned.
Tracy acknowledged the headwinds confronted by company sustainability professionals amid the altering guidelines of the Trump administration, however mentioned Colgate-Palmolive’s traders are nonetheless taken with seeing progress towards its local weather objectives.
“Like all firms, we’re being cautious in regards to the narrative,” she mentioned. “We’re being cautious about what we are saying — we’ve to be — however I believe, internally, we nonetheless are staying the course.”
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