For more than 75 years, GOJO has been shaping a better future for everyone through well-being solutions that save lives and make life better.
When Goldie and Jerry Lippman founded GOJO in 1946, they built the company on the premise of creating a safer way for workers to clean their hands – this premise was about Clean Chemistry. They didn't call it Clean Chemistry then, but it was about creating a safe and efficacious solution. So much of what Goldie and Jerry did was inherently sustainable, although they likely didn't view it as we view sustainability today – from using old car window cranks for the first-ever portion-controlled dispenser to using recycled pickle jars for the product.
In 2006, we really launched our sustainability journey with the first-to-market green hand cleaner. And since then, we've reached so many wonderful sustainability milestones, including:
- The publication of our first sustainability report and policy in 2011;
- Being awarded the U.S. EPA Safer Choice Partner of the Year for PURELL® Surface Spray; and
- Getting hundreds of our PURELL® hand sanitizer and PURELL® Brand HEALTHY SOAP® with CLEAN RELEASE® Technology SKUs Cradle to Cradle certified.
We are not strangers to creating sustainability goals. In 2010, we introduced our first Sustainability Goals and in 2015 we announced our next set – many of which we accomplished before our end goal of 2020. We are excited and proud to introduce our third set of Sustainable Value Goals, which are designed to transform our business to deliver the GOJO Purpose over the long haul and innovate for a better world.
Selecting the right focus areas
To identify the issues most important for us to measure and manage against, GOJO undertook a materiality assessment led by a third-party consultancy. This stakeholder engagement process collected feedback from customers, suppliers, relevant NGOs, and our team members, resulting in a list of topics of increasing importance for us to tackle. This, in combination with benchmarking and trend analysis, helped us to focus on the right issues.
Developing the targets
To develop targets, cross-functional team members led workstreams to evaluate targets that would stretch us in a particular topic but with paths partially mapped to achievement and room in timing to make the requisite investments. Knowing that feedback from our leadership is also a critical piece of this process, executive team members, including our Chief Human Resources Officer, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Chief Solutions Officer, and Chief Innovation Officer, sponsored the workstreams and helped them overcome obstacles, and connected the thinking to other initiatives within the Enterprise. Workstream leaders checked in with a Sustainable Value Steering Team, which had ultimate decision-making accountability for the final targets. Our Executive Chair, Marcella Kanfer Rolnick, and our President and CEO, Carey Jaros, sponsored the steering team.
This phase of the GOJO Sustainable Value strategy is focused on four priorities:
- Clean Chemistry: GOJO has been a leader in safer chemistry for decades, and it intends to continue to differentiate in this space. Focused innovation has resulted in the largest global portfolio of third-party Ecolabel-certified hygiene products* in the B2B hand and surface hygiene industry, including hundreds of hand hygiene SKUs being Cradle to Cradle Certified® Gold products. As a founding and ongoing participant in the Chemical Footprint Project, GOJO will continue to push the boundaries on choosing safe ingredients for both people and the planet while continuing to deliver unquestionable efficacy. Additionally, GOJO will expand product transparency to inspire ever greater trust in GOJO as an Enterprise and the PURELL® brand.
- Flourishing Team GOJO: Team GOJO is one of our towering strengths. As such, work toward this priority will strengthen GOJO culture by boldly advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging; achieving team member growth and development; and elevating and enhancing team member well-being.
- Plastics & Circular Design: Plastic plays an important role in protecting and delivering GOJO products, but plastic pollution has clearly become a serious environmental and human health challenge. GOJO recognizes the way it delivers and protects its products is reliant on plastic today and, in some instances, does not work well in a circular economy. Work in this domain will transform how GOJO evaluates and utilizes materials in its packaging and dispensing systems over time, from incorporating recycled content and ensuring increased recyclability to exploring alternative materials and delivery models.
- Climate Resilience & Responsibility: Climate change is a grave threat to societies around the world and global public health. To do its part, GOJO has committed to setting short-term and long-term carbon reduction targets in alignment with the Science Based Targets Initiative's Net-Zero Standard. This best-practice commitment will guide the efforts of the Enterprise to decarbonize across its entire value chain and to deliver lower carbon solutions to customers.
"We know the progress we'll make on these four pillars will lead directly to better health for people and the planet," said Carey Jaros, GOJO Industries President & CEO. "For more than 75 years, we've used science-based innovation to solve real human problems, setting new standards for efficacy and safety and inspiring others to develop solutions that increase overall well-being. This next phase of our Sustainable Value strategy stretches us to have an even greater impact on our customers and communities, and society as a whole."
"Our GOJO Purpose and Values demand and inspire us to think holistically and deliver what we call GOJO Sustainable Value," said Marcella Kanfer Rolnick, GOJO Industries Executive Chair. "GOJO Sustainable Value strives to create social, environmental, and economic value for all of our stakeholders, and holds us accountable for the impact of our actions and inactions. Each part of our Sustainable Value strategy connects to the others and moves us closer to realizing our Purpose of Saving Lives and Making Life Better through Well-Being Solutions."
Specific goals and additional details for each priority are available on GOJO.com. Read more blogs about sustainable value at GOJO.