ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

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In the race to make progress on sustainability, businesses increasingly acknowledge the need to focus on the actions where they can make the biggest difference. Kimberly-Clark Professional is leading the industry with the approach that prioritising material challenges is not only an ethical choice but also helps customers to meet their sustainability goals.

It ensures that sustainability initiatives are effective, aligned with stakeholder expectations, and driven by data and facts. This approach helps manage risks, reduce costs and contribute to a more sustainable and resilient future.

Kimberly-Clark Professional's sustainability projects include a focus on energy and resource consumption, waste and product innovation, as it addresses its environmental impact at all stages in its value chain - from production to end use and consumption.

Aiming for 100% green electricity

2023 marked a major milestone for Kimberly-Clark, the parent company of leading household brands including Andrex®, Kleenex® and Huggies®, as it made significant strides in making use of renewable energy. By signing a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Octopus Energy Generation, the company helped to build a brand-new, £75 million onshore wind farm in Scotland which is expected to generate around 80% of the firm's UK electrical power needs in its Barrow, Flint and Northfleet manufacturing facilities. At the Flint site, over 185 million Scott® toilet rolls and around 30 million rolls of WypAll® wipers are manufactured annually for the European B2B market.

It is an important project for Kimberly-Clark UK and & Ireland to reach an ambitious target to reach 100% renewable energy by 2030. The 50 MW 12-turbine Cumberland facility took 18 months to build and will serve the company 160,000 megawatt hours of renewable energy every year. That will deliver carbon emissions savings of 55,625 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year, the equivalent to taking more than 38,000 passenger vehicles off the road. By reducing energy use (scope 1) and prioritising and using renewable energy in our operations (scope 2) Kimberly-Clark Professional are reducing the carbon impact of their products (customer scope 3 emissions).

Tackling waste

With RightCycle® by Kimberly-Clark Professional, the company is also playing a role in helping end-users meet their waste reduction targets

RightCycle® is the world's first dispenser recycling service and a hand towel recycling service and a good example of the innovation needed to tackle the waste footprint of customers. Right now, the majority of used hand towels are simply thrown away. RightCycle® offers a closed loop service so that each used towel is turned back into new products. According to Kimberly-Clark Professional^TM, the hand towel recycling service can help customers reduce their waste by up to 25% and increase their recycling rate by up to 5% (based on UK offices per person average kilogramme of waste).

Innovating for change

"It is in product innovation and the use of new technology that companies have a real opportunity to effect change, particularly in helping the end user to reduce energy and resources and buy products which have a lower impact on the planet," explains Carrie Stanley, EMEA & Latin America Marketing Director. "If washroom facilities and products are designed to be reliable and efficient, then they also reduce waste and costs."

The Scott® Essential^TM Rolled Hand Towel from Kimberly-Clark Professional is the longest in the world at 380m per roll so there are fewer run outs and maintenance required. The hand towels which are made from 100% recycled fibre, are also made with Airflex^TM Technology which allows high compressibility without reducing hand feel or drying performance, meaning less waste as fewer towels are required per hand dry.

Kimberly-Clark Professional has developed ICON^TM, a set of dispensing systems for soap, sanitiser and hand towels, with sustainability in mind. While most dispensers are designed around paper, the ICON^TM collection is designed around the servicer, facility manager, and end-user. Built on Kimberly-Clark Professional's direct drive technology, ICON^TM dispensers provide 150,000 dispenses per battery set, 99.9% jam free reliability and dispensing that is the quietest available. Patented dual sensors provide responsive touchless dispensing so towels are ready when needed eliminating wasteful dispensing.

ICON^TM dispensers also offer functional and aesthetic longevity not typical in this category. Dispensers have traditionally been considered a semi-disposable product. When damaged or outdated, they are replaced and often discarded. ICON^TM products have been designed to be serviceable and upgradable. Interchangeable faceplates enable the ICON^TM Dispenser Collection to meet ever-changing user needs without having to replace the entire dispenser.

Reducing more waste

Across all its sectors Kimberly-Clark Professional continuously innovates to help customers reduce more waste. 2023 saw the introduction of WypAll® Reach PLUS^TM, the next level of wiper paper dispensing. This higher capacity single sheet centrefeed dispenser helps users save up to 50% of paper consumption and reduce environmental impact in many segments including retail, food production and food service, healthcare and heavy traffic manufacturing sites. This innovation was developed with and for customers looking for a solution to avoid cross-contamination, reduce costs and looked aesthetically pleasing. The versatility of this dispenser is also one of its unique features: it can be used in 4 different ways: horizontally mounted (less space on the wall), specialised location (beneath a workstation), free standing and traditionally wall mounted.

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