Gianni Ciserani, president for Procter & Gamble, Western Europe, told an audience of European business leaders that in a world of uncertainty, European consumers could continue to rely on P&G to provide products that delivered great value, performance and sustainability. He said that P&G was investing in products offering reduced environmental footprint and stated that the company will significantly increase targets for its 2012 sustainability goals. He also shared details of the company's latest initiative to reduce road transportation in Europe by increasing its use of rail.
Ciserani was speaking in Brussels at the seventh annual European Business Summit (EBS) – one of Europe's leading business forums, supported by the European Commission and the EU Presidency.
"Innovation has never been more critical to the long-term success of our business and even in these tough times we are continuing to drive innovation on our brands" he said. "In laundry, we have set the trend for the future - first with Ariel Cool Clean and now with Ariel ExcelGel, a breakthrough product that delivers our best cleaning while touching three points of the sustainable product innovation cycle – less chemicals, less water and less energy."
Ariel ExcelGel is currently transforming the detergent category across Western Europe. It brings a totally new way of cleaning. Key to the product's consumer appeal is its gel texture making it incredibly user-friendly and sustainable. A small dose delivers brilliant cleaning even at wash temperatures as low as 15 degrees. The product contains 20percent less chemicals per wash and the pack uses 45percent less plastic than a common liquid detergent.
Ciserani said that P&G is integrating sustainability into every corner of its business. He talked about P&G's latest initiative to reduce road transportation. P&G's finished products travel over 200 million kilometers across Western Europe each year, with more than 90 percen of goods transported by road. The company is now aiming to increase the use of rail transportation from 10 percent to 30 percent by 2015. This represents an annual reduction of 67,500 tons of C02. P&G is one of the pioneers in the consumer goods industry to include inter-modality in its distribution network on such a large scale. Two recent inter-modal pilot projects, one in Belgium and the other in France, proved to be very successful and now pave the way for expansion of rail transportation in Western Europe.
Ciserani shared the news that P&G will significantly increase targets for its 2012 sustainability goals. The updates reflect the company's continued commitment to progress in improving the environmental profile of P&G's products and operations and bettering lives of children in need through its Live, Learn and Thrive corporate social responsibility programs. The revised 2012 goals are:
· Develop and market at least $50 billion in cumulative sales of "sustainable innovation products" (SIP), which are products with a significantly reduced (greater than 10 percent) environmental footprint versus previous or alternative products. When compared against original target of $20 billion in cumulative SIP sales, the new goal reflects a strengthened pipeline of initiatives.
· Deliver a 20 percent reduction (per unit of production) in carbon dioxide emissions, energy consumption, water usage and disposed waste from P&G plants, leading to a total reduction over the decade of at least 50 percent (vs. the 40 percent set originally).
· Enable 300 million children to Live, Learn and Thrive (LLT) and deliver three billion liters of clean water through P&G's Children's Safe Drinking Water (CSDW) program. P&G had set an original target of reaching 25 million children through Live, Learn and Thrive (LLT) and delivering two billion liters of clean water.
About Procter & Gamble
Three billion times a day, P&G brands touch the lives of people around the world. The company has one of the strongest portfolios of trusted, quality, leadership brands, including Pampers, Ariel, Always, Pantene, Mach3, Herbal Essences, Fairy, Ace, Lenor, M. Proper, Tampax, Dash, Pringles, Oral-B, Actonel, Duracell, Iams and Eukanuba, Wella, Gillette, and Braun. The P&G community consists of about 138,000 employees globally working in over 80 countries of which about one quarter work in Western Europe.
