Sustainable washing

We make great products for cleaning clothes, showering, and bathing. But the hot water our consumers use to enjoy our products makes up almost 70% of the overall greenhouse gas footprint associated with our entire business.

In the drive to halve the environmental impact of our products, finding ways to reduce the amount of heated water consumers use during clothes washing is crucial.

We are looking to open innovation to help us: working with partners who have ideas for technological or design innovations that could improve the cleaning power of our laundry products at lower temperatures, or reduce the amount of water used to wash clothes.

Small actions really could make a big difference in this field – because millions of people use our cleaning products every day.

To meet our challenge, we need to reduce the overall amount of heated water associated with the use of our laundry products, by:

• achieving higher washing performance at low temperature

• reducing the levels of water required for efficient laundry cleaning

We have some ideas for areas where innovation could meet this challenge:

• chemicals, formulations, ingredients or solvents which enhance or accelerate the cleaning process

• novel wash devices

We're open to working with partners who can help with the solutions we're already considering – or who have a technological idea we haven't thought of at all. But any solution must meet some key requirements:

• measurable improvement to hot water requirements

• consumer acceptance

• safety

If you have a design or technological idea that could help us meet this challenge, we'd like to hear from you.