What efforts for sustainability is Henkel making?

05-Jan-2018 - Last updated on 05-Jan-2018 at 10:49 GMT

With Henkel, a leading German personal care and household goods producer, having been awarded the highest score from Sustainalytics, a Dutch rating agency, we take a look at what it’s doing in the field of sustainability.

Henkel says that along with Sustainalytics’ ranking, its sustainability performance has also been included in the following international indices: STOXX Global ESG Leaders Indices (Zurich), Global Challenges Index (Hamburg), MSCI ESG and SRI Indices (New York), Euronext Vigeo Eiris Sustainability Indices (Paris) and Ethibel Sustainability Indices (Paris).

“Henkel employs more than 50,000 people globally – a passionate and highly diverse team, united by a strong company culture, a common purpose to create sustainable value, and shared values,” the company, which owns Schwarzkopf, says.

“As a recognized leader in sustainability, Henkel holds top positions in many international indices and rankings.”
2030 strategy

Long-term goal

Henkel explains that it has developed a long-term sustainability strategy and set a “straightforward yet ambitious goal” for the year 2030.

The goal is that by 2030, all Henkel products and processes should be three times as efficient as they are today (an aim dubbed ‘Factor 3’).

“This aim addresses one of the central challenges we will face in the future: decoupling growth from resource consumption,” Henkel explains.

“Instead, we want to create more value – for our customers and consumers, for the communities we operate in, and for our company – while reducing our environmental footprint at the same time."

Factor 3

Henkel explains that it intends to carry out a two-sided approach to reaching its aims, rather than focusing solely on either tripling the value it creates while leaving the footprint at the same level, or reducing the environmental footprint to one third of today’s level while achieving our improvement in efficiency by delivering the same value.

“In many cases, we will approach from both sides, reducing input and improving output at the same time,” it explains.

The company aims to focus on six key areas across its supply chain: social progress, performance, safety and health, energy and climate, materials and waste and water and wastewater.