P&G Greencubator programs show how small actions can make a world of difference for the environment.

Procter & Gamble Philippines, the leading multinational consumer goods company and manufacturer of well-loved hygiene brands, is encouraging its employees, partners, and consumers to be Green Citizens. As part of the company’s renewed commitment to environmental sustainability, P&G aims to accelerate their Ambition 2030 plans to protect and conserve the environment by using their people, their brands, and innovation expertise to help people embrace sustainable living at home.

In its recent Sustainability Summit, P&G announced its latest sustainable brand innovations such as the new Herbal Essences bio: renew collection that now uses 25% post-consumer resin, which is upcycled plastic waste, in its bottle packaging. It also shared its achievement of reducing 85% of its greenhouse gas emissions from its local operations, currently ahead of global targets to reduce global GHG emissions by 50% by 2030. To offset emissions which can no longer be reduced, it supports sustainable local ecosystems and communities such as those in the Sierra Madre Mountain Range with the launch of the P&G Philippines Forests for Good.

While making its products and operations more sustainable, P&G has also enabled their over 2,000 employees to be more active advocates, believing that environmental sustainability is everyone’s responsibility at home and at work. According to a new study in the U.S. by P&G, 72% of people want to do more to be sustainable at home. But only fewer than half of people make environmentally conscious choices at home as often as they would like. For most people, “not knowing how” is their biggest barrier to acting sustainably.

P&G launched an internal ideation hub dubbed as “Greencubator” to make sustainability practices easy-to-access, easy-to-do, and more meaningful for those who are not sure where to start. P&G provided grant funding and support for the top Greencubator ideas to enable employees to make a difference in the workplace and integrate sustainable solutions in daily work.  This will help close the gap between intention to action and unlock the potential of individual contributions towards a more sustainable company and world.

GREEN CITIZENSHIP APP THAT SUPPORTS P&G’S FORESTS FOR GOOD

“Doing good acts for the environment is not as intuitive and easy. It can be overwhelming not knowing where to start or to be doing things without knowing if they are truly making an impact for the environment”, says Chin Kalingo, P&G employee and P&G Greencubator contest winner alongside other team members Carmela Corpuz, Laurice Abueg, Lawrence Lin, Aya Wee, Kristine Espinosa.

This is the reason why a talented team of Information Technology experts from P&G’s Manila Service Center developed an internet application called “Green Citizenship”.

Using the Green Citizen App, employees can track and commit to good sustainability habits and practices to responsibly manage personal actions in the areas of Waste and Consumption, Food, Energy, Water, Natural Resources, and using Fossil Fuels. The app gives all employees a platform to learn what acts can they start doing and track these sustainable acts that reduce their individual footprint at home. Further, each action, challenge or behavior completed also earns them points towards being rewarded with more trees planted in their name in the P&G Forest for Good in Sierra Madre.

Forests for Good aims to actively protect nature by planting trees that help improve local ecosystems in P&G’s 12 pilot forests all over the Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa region.

In the app, employees will be notified of the specific simple and actionable “Behaviors” or reminders such as showering with cold water to minimize energy use or turning the tap off when brushing teeth, washing or shaving. There are also “Sustainability Challenges” employees can participate in, like attending Sustainability for a and joining company programs to learn more, and a “Leaderboard” tab, which shows and rewards employees who accumulated the most points, ultimately making the experience engaging.

The Green Citizenship app also sends individual reports to employees to show the progress they have made motivating them to continue these acts of good for the environment and to live sustainably every day.

“With Green Citizenship, we can see that being more sustainable each day is something that we all can do. It’s about incorporating these small acts at home into our daily routines until they eventually become part of our lifestyle”, says Carmela Corpuz, a P&G employee, and Green Citizenship team member.

BUILDING SHELTERS OUT OF PLASTIC WASTE WITH PLASTIC FLAMINGO

Plastic upcycling is one of the ways we can divert plastic waste out of the oceans and landfills. To help divert post-consumer waste, P&G has committed to comprehensively work on and invest in packaging design and innovation across brands while collaborating with external stakeholders on piloting waste infrastructure interventions in several countries. Last year, P&G collected over 3.2 million pieces of sachets with World Vision Philippines and converted them into over 1,000 upcycled plastic school chairs with safety dividers for schools in Malabon and Quezon City.

Given the criticality of proper solid waste management and upcycling, P&G employees Joanna Sarmiento and Eunice Aguilar submitted a proposal to support Plastic Flamingo’s (PLAF) Planks of Promise program locally. The program, funded and supported by The Alliance to End Plastic Waste which is also being chaired by P&G’s Chairman, President and CEO David Taylor, aims to scale up plastic waste collection in Metro Manila and turn the collected waste into “eco-planks” in their new recycling facility. By the year 2022, they hope to recycle 2,000 metric tons per year.

“For plastic sachets waste, one easy way to find a solution is to find another use for it. Instead of calling it a sachet, why don’t we call it a shelter, a bench, or a boardwalk? Because that’s what we’re actually doing at the Plastic Flamingo. We are transforming these so-called wastes into something beneficial to the people and the environment. For us, these plastic sachets aren’t waste, they’re raw materials for our products”, says Gauthier Belhomme, PLAF’s Chief Revenue Officer at the recently concluded P&G’s It’s our Home Sustainability Summit.

P&G has set up upcycled bins and plastic collection points in their BGC office and Cabuyao Plant. They will soon be expanding this in local communities and with customer partners. All plastic waste collected will be transformed into building planks for emergency shelters, which can then be used during typhoons and calamities.

Anyone can drop off all kinds of waste in PLAF’s various collection points.

P&G has built sustainability into their everyday business operations and culture, empowering all employees to contribute at home and at work. Their Ambition 2030 commitments include holistic and comprehensive interventions to make responsible consumption possible across its brand innovations, supply chain operations, trusted partnerships that impact society, and their employees.