lsp-1 close-out report executive summary final (01 feb 2010)

8/3/2019 LSP-1 Close-Out Report Executive Summary Final (01 Feb 2010)

1/8

01 Feb. 2010

CLOSE-OUT REPORT

A.I.S.E. Laundry Sustainability Project # 1for Heavy Duty Low Suds Laundry Powder Detergents

(LSP-1)

A.I.S.E. 2006 / 2008 REPORTDecember 2009

Prepared by: Mr. S. Waldhr

Ms. C. BoudetMr. G.A. Fontanari


2/8

- 2 -

A.I.S.E. LAUNDRY SUSTAINABILITY PROJECT # 1for Heavy Duty Low Suds Laundry Powder Detergents

(LSP-1)

2006 - 2008 CLOSE-OUT REPORT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report presents the results of the LSP-1 initiative, which aimed to minimizethe environmental impact of Heavy Duty Low Suds powder detergents forhousehold laundry. LSP-1 was initiated, promoted and deployed by A.I.S.E. withthe support of its National Associations partners under criteria of fulltransparency making participation to the project fully voluntary whilst being open

to any company (both members and non-members) wishing to participate.A.I.S.E. also provided Manufacturing guidelines and offered experts assistanceon request to any company asking for technical assistance to prevent thepossible exclusion of any company for technical reasons.

Table of Contents

1. Scope/Objectives ..................................................................................................... - 3 -2. Overall environmental achievements ...................................................................... - 5 -

2.1. Expectations ................................................................................................... - 5 -2.2. Achievements ................................................................................................ - 5 -2.3. Fact Page Sound-bites ........................................................................... - 6 -

3. Conclusions ............................................................................................................. - 7 -4. Annex 1: Explanation of sustainability benefits calculations ................................ - 8 -


3/8

- 3 -

Executive Summary

In 2006 A.I.S.E., the International Association for Soaps, Detergents and MaintenanceProducts, launched its first Laundry Sustainability Project (LSP-1)1. This was a voluntaryindustry initiative aiming to minimize the environmental impact of Heavy Duty Low Suds powderdetergents for household laundry, thus promoting sustainable production and consumption viacompaction and concentration of such products together with adequate consumer information.

This initiative came within the framework of the Associations agenda for sustainability and theindustrys commitment to reduce the environmental impact of detergents2. LSP-1 was a directfollow-up of the A.I.S.E. Code of Good Environmental Practice (which became a EuropeanCommission Recommendation - 98/480/EC) and of the associated Washright campaign.

Before the 2004 enlargement of the European Union, many initiatives undertaken by A.I.S.E.,e.g., the already mentioned Code of Good Environmental Practice, were focused on the then15 EU Member States and on the four EFTA countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway andSwitzerland).

The LSP-1 initiative represented an enlargement of the focus of A.I.S.E. and was open not only

to the historical region (the now EU 27 + the four EFTA countries), but also to other surroundingcountries (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Republic of Macedonia - FYROM, Moldova,Montenegro and Serbia). In fact, the focus was placed on Central and Eastern European(CEE) countries, which had not undergone the compaction steps in the framework of the Codeof Good Environmental Practice program.

The LSP-1 started on 1 January 2006 and ended on 31 December 2007 in the EU-27, EFTAand Moldova. During this period, companies were allowed to join the project and theircompacted products were identifiable by the Euro-compact Logo (see below under 1.1.).Companies had an additional year (until end 2008) to sell off in these countries their stocks ofproducts that were carrying the logo in the framework of the project. This made the wholeproject life to cover a three-year period from 1 January 2006 until 31 December 2008.

In the other countries, the project is still active and is expected to run until 31 December 2010,as the project could not be fully implemented as initially foreseen.

This report analyses the sustainability achievements of the project between the start of theproject and 31 December 2008 for the following countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic,Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. To note thatdata from Moldova are not included, as we did not get a sufficiently reliable market analysis forthat country.

1. Scope/ObjectivesThe project was open to all companies manufacturing or placing on the market regular

low-suds heavy-duty powder detergents for household use. In total 17 companies joined.These companies represented around 85% of the market in the target region and were:

Ecolab GmbH & Co. OHG,Engrotus d.o.o.,EVM Zrt.,Ficosota Syntez LTD,Hayat Kimya San. S.A.,Henkel,

Ineza 2M UAB,Jeronimo Martins

Dystrybucja S.A,Johnson Diversey BV,Labud d.o.o.,Maxima LT,

Mayeri Industries AS,Procter & Gamble,PZ Cussons S.A.,Reckitt Benckiser,Saponia d.o.o.,Unilever

1 See in Annex 1 the A.I.S.E. Laundry Sustainability Project #1 project description document

2 See www.aise.eu (Voluntary Industry Initiatives)


4/8

- 4 -

The participants included large multinational companies, SMEs and private labelmanufacturing companies / retailers. Some I&I companies having products similar to thelow-suds granular powder detergents for household use also joined in.

Each company that joined the LSP-1 had to commit to reduce the recommended dosagefor a standard washing machine load by a minimum of 33% in weight and 25% in volumewhilst maintaining at least the same washing efficiency. Both targets were to be judged

against a baseline of the dosage declaration on January 2005.In order to signal to consumers that the product was compacted, the pack of compacteddetergents had to bear a distinctive logo:

A.I.S.E. made this logo available to all participating companies for use on their packs andother promotional material.

Importantly to reach the desired sustainability benefits, not only the manufacturers had tocompact their products, but also consumers had to adapt their dosing habits to the newdosage instructions. It was therefore key that this message was conveyed in the properway to consumers.

Therefore, A.I.S.E. and its member National Associations ran centrally a harmonized andintensive communication and educational campaign: Clean up your laundry habits toraise consumers awareness on how best to use the new products to achieve the desiredenvironmental improvements. A non-branded TV advertising was aired in the countrieswhere the project was fully deployed using centrally developed non-branded 15 and30

TV spots. In addition, National Associations ran local PR activities in several countries.A.I.S.E. developed also some specific ad-hoc material to be used with the trade, alwayswith the objective of attracting consumers attention to the new compacted products andtheir new dosage instructions.

Here below are the Washing Machine character which became the symbol of theinitiative and an example of a banner that was used in some retail shops.

In addition to consumers, also stakeholders were involved. In the context of the centrallycoordinated PR campaign, A.I.S.E. and its National Associations informed about LSP-1also the most relevant European and National authorities, as well as NGOs in the field ofenvironment and consumer interest. Several GOs and NGOs in the countries where theproject was fully deployed showed strong support to the initiative.

The central budget for the development of the LSP-1 initiative and the production of allcommunication material was over 800,000 Euro. The TV campaign was worth theequivalent of ca 15 million Euro rate card spending and it reached approximately 55million consumers.


5/8

- 5 -

2. Overall environmental achievements

2.1. Expectations

In order to evaluate and assess the environmental positive potential of this plannedLSP initiative, before launching the project, in 2005, A.I.S.E. commissioned an ISOcompliant Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)3 in two representative countries, Poland andthe Czech Republic. In addition, the A.I.S.E.s Technical Project Team prepared a

Scientific dossier4

setting the stage for the project.The various calculations showed that the planned initiative had the potential to saveclose to 300,000 tons of detergents over the three-year lifetime of the project andwould enable a decrease of ca 15,000 tons in the use of packaging materials. In bothcases, these numbers represented a 20 to 25% decrease vs. the actual usage levels.

As a measure of the success of the project, we also set a target to reach a conversionrate higher than 80% in Market Value shares.

2.2. Achievements

At the end of the project lifetime, all indicators met and even surpassed the positiveachievements expected prior to the launch of the project.

On average, in the countries covered by this report (including Croatia, but excludingMoldova), the conversion rate to Euro-compact products reached an average of85% in market volume and 91% in market value terms.

Data collected from the participants of the project allowed to calculate that theenvironmental savings generated by the LSP-1 initiative for the period 2006-2008 inthe area analysed were as follows:

ca 387,000 tons in terms of chemicals, which represents a 30% reduction on agoing basis as visualized in the graph below:

ca 21,300 tons in terms of packaging materials usage, which is a ca 28%reduction on a going basis, as visualized in the graph below:

3 Re. the Comparative Life Cycle assessment of compacted with non-compacted heavy duty low suds detergent

formulations in Poland and the Czech Republic study prepared by Procter & Gamble, Brussels InnovationCenter, Central Product Safety Environmental (Joost Dewaele, Rana Pant) and critically reviewed by Ecobilan PricewaterhouseCoopers (Philippe Osset) and Gingko 21 (Hlne Teulon)This study is available upon request at A.I.S.E.

4See in Annex 2 the A.I.S.E. Laundry Sustainability Project #1 - Scientific Dossier Summary


6/8

- 6 -

2.3. Fact Page Sound-bites

To add some perspective, the environmental savings in product consumption5equalled:

ca 54,000 tons in the launch year 2006; thisis equivalent to the consumption of low suds

powder detergents of the Czech Republic inthat year;

ca 156,000 tons in 2007; this is equivalent tothe consumption of the Czech Republic+ thethree Baltic countries + Bulgaria + Hungary inthat year;

ca 177,000 tons in the final year 2008: this isequivalent to the consumption of the CzechRepublic + the three Baltic countries +Bulgaria + Hungary+ Croatia in that year.

Coloured area: countries where the project wasconcluded and data are reported(the project was concluded also inMoldova, but no final data areavailable)

In total over the whole lifetime of the project, we have seen the following benefits:

enough product was saved to avoid the transport of a trucks convoy of 17,580trucks stretching from Tallinn (Estonia) to Ljubljana (Slovenia).

enough packaging materials were saved to avoid the transport of a garbage-trucks convoy of 1,700 trucks stretching from Bratislava (Slovakia) to Budapest(Hungary).

5 See in annex 1 the explanations of the savings calculations


7/8

- 7 -

3. ConclusionsLSP-1 can be considered as a very positive step ahead in terms of sustainability.

If such an industry-wide initiative had not taken place, product consumption would havebeen substantially higher.

In fact, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, following the initial stabilization of the economical

situation in the CEE region in the second half of the nineties, in the last decade theeconomy started to grow at a 5% rate on average, double in size compared to WesternEurope. As a result, the national income improved noticeably and the same happened tothe standard of living. Higher frequency of washing, larger penetration of washingmachines, the switch from High Suds to Low Suds detergents were all factors leading to acontinuous increase in the pro-capita consumption of Low Suds detergents. In 2005, theyearly pro-capita consumption of detergents on average across the CEE countries was lessthan 5 kg (significantly lower than in Western Europe) even if large variations existedacross countries.

It had to be expected that this growth of detergents consumption would have continued inthis economically prosperous time in CEE. In fact, this has not happened and we have

seen on average a significant decrease. Although it is impossible to make a perfectcorrelation, we have every reason to believe that this was a direct consequence of theimplementation of LSP-1.

The overall results at the end of the life of LSP-1 clearly show that:

a. the Detergent Industry as a whole clearly understood and appreciated the sustainabilityvalue and potential of such an industry-wide initiative. The large majority of companies joined and supported the project and its harmonised communication campaign, thusmaking it possible for such campaign to reach a very large number of consumers;

and

b. consumers seem to have adapted their dosage habits to the new reduced levels, thussuggesting that they have understood the messages transmitted by the educationalPR-campaigns and the benefits of compacted detergents.

Importantly, none of the participants to LSP-1 moved back to producing regular powderdetergents during the lifetime of the project and up to the time of preparing this report, thusmaintaining and expanding over the years to come these sustainability benefits.


8/8

- 8 -

4. Annex 1: Explanation of sustainability benefitscalculations

This explanatory annex is meant for illustration only to put environmental savings into alanguage comprehensible for everybody.

The tables below shows the basis for the statements made.

Product Environmental Savings

Total product saving Product saving equivalent to:

Product saving: 386,841 tonsover the three-year period

2006 : 54,000 t

2007 : 156,000 t

2008 : 177,000 t

Total annual consumption of

Czech Republic in 2006 ca53,000 t

Czech Republic + the three Balticcountries + Bulgaria + Hungary in2007 ca 156,000 t

Czech Republic + the three Balticcountries + Bulgaria + Hungary +Croatia in 2008 ca 177,000 t

This can be expressed over the three year period also in terms of:

17,584 less truck journeys

A line of parked trucks of 281 km equivalent to almost the distancebetween Vilnius and Riga

A moving trucks convoy 2,040 km long, which is equivalent toalmost the distance between Tallinn and Ljubljana

* 1 truck load = 22 tons; length of a truck = 16 m;

Road space taken by a moving truck = 100 + 16 m

Packaging Environmental Savings

Packaging saving: 21,287 tons over the three-year period

2006 : 2,963 t 2007 : 8,607 t 2008 : 9,717 t

Assumptions

Total packaging use ingrams per wash

Regular (non-compact)1 wash = 150 g

Eurocompact1 wash = 100 g

Primary packaging- LDPE flexible bag

Transport packaging- Cardboard case- Corr. Flute tie sheet- LDPE stretch foil

Total (excl. pallets)

1.275

7.5400.0890.0788.982

1.085

5.0300.0600.0526.227

Total packaging used(kg/per ton of product)

59.88 62.27

This can be expressed over the three year period also in terms of:

1,703 less garbage-truck journeys

A line of parked trucks of 17 km

A moving trucks convoy 187 km long, which is equivalent to almostthe distance between Bratislava and Budapest

* 1 garbage-truck load = 12.5 tons; length of a garbage-truck = 10 m;Road space taken by a moving garbage-truck = 100 + 10 m

lsp-1 close-out report executive summary final (01 feb 2010)

Documents