The Clorox Company’s Road to Sustainability

As brands continue down the road of sustainability, they often run into some unexpected learnings—The Clorox Company is no exception. During this year’s Good And Green®-The Green Marketing Conference, November 17 & 18, at the Chicago Cultural Center, Bill Morrissey, Vice President, Sustainability for The Clorox Company will be sharing what the brand has learned on its own journey to sustainability, illustrating how some of Clorox’s best results were achieved when the company moved beyond conventional sustainability wisdom. Patti Minglin recently asked Mr. Morrissey to share some of his insights on how this brand continues to be a leader of the environmental movement and what he is most looking forward to during Good And Green®.

Patti Minglin: The Clorox Company has always been a leader in the sustainability movement. What are some ways in which Clorox has stretched beyond conventional sustainability wisdom in order to achieve success?

Bill Morrissey: When you think about a company reducing its environmental impact, you typically think about its operations. We agree that it is important to reduce one’s operational footprint, but for Clorox’s business, we believe that it is even more important to focus on making our product offerings more sustainable. This could mean any number of things like reducing packaging, concentrating a formula, or moving to more sustainable materials. For a consumer packaged goods company like Clorox that sells more than a billion items into the consumer marketplace each year, making such changes has a large impact beyond the walls of our operations.

But we do not stop there. In addition to constantly evolving our current product portfolio, we are investing behind new brands that offer more natural alternatives to existing conventional brands like our Green Works® Natural Cleaner and Burt’s Bees® Natural Personal Care lines.

And it’s not surprising that our entrée into the natural category has raised questions about the role of some of our other products, particularly bleach. So it is also important that we correct misconceptions there. People have a misperception about bleach because of its sheer power and smell. But it would probably surprise you to know that Clorox Bleach, besides being one of the most effective and affordable disinfectants available today, actually breaks down primarily into salt and water upon use.

Minglin: I did not know that about Clorox Bleach—that’s great information to have. With everything you have been doing what are some of the things you have learned along the way?

Morrissey: Clorox has learned a lot in our journey to becoming a more sustainable company. For example, while consumers care about “the environment,” we’ve learned that their interest in more natural products is really more rooted in a core motivation we call “my environment,” or what’s “in me, on me, around me.” This idea lines up well with our product offerings. Our “in me” Brita product provides cleaner water, while our “on me” Burt’s Bees products provide natural skin care alternatives, and our “around me” Green Works products provide natural surface and laundry cleaning alternatives.

Another learning is around the value of unconventional partnerships. Certainly the Sierra Club relationship that Green Works established was a surprise to a lot of people but we have a strong partnership with them as both organizations share the goal of mainstreaming more natural cleaners.

Minglin: Anything exciting or new happening with The Clorox Company now that you would like to share with readers?

Morrissey: I am always personally excited about our ongoing progress with sustainability initiatives. One thing that I can share is that after converting all our company cars to Prius Hybrids last year, we are now working hard to achieve LEED certification for Clorox’s headquarters building in Oakland, California.

Minglin: That’s exciting news. What are you looking forward to most about this year’s Good And Green® Conference?

Morrissey: I most look forward to getting good ideas from other conference attendees who are all working hard to further our collective sustainability focus. While we at Clorox are proud of recent sustainability accomplishments, we also recognize that we do not have all the answers, and are still in the early part of our sustainability journey.

Minglin: I always thing that’s the key to success—being proud of what you have achieved, but eager to learn more. I am really looking forward to your Good And Green® presentation.