The maker of Andrex, Kleenex and Huggies said its plans to put sustainability at the core of its agenda in the UK, Europe and Africa, especially in the current Covid-19 context as one of the largest manufacturers of toilet rolls, facial tissues and other personal care products in the world.
Kimberly-Clark estimates that a quarter of the world’s population uses a K-C product every day.
The personal care giant said this strategy will see a 50% reduction in its carbon footprint, forest footprint, water footprint, and use of virgin fossil-fuel based plastics within the next 10 years.
This builds on the company’s previous leadership in manufacturing waste diversion to tackle single-use plastics.
As members of the UK’s Plastic Pact, Kimberly-Clark has been working with industry partners, NGOs and the government to further support innovation in waste collection and circular systems.
In 2019 Kimberly-Clark completed 98% landfill diversion at its manufacturing facilities – over 5,500 tonnes of product and packaging diverted from landfill.
Key sustainability highlights from the UK and EMEA region include:
The Huggies Tiniest Footprint initiative in the UK is set to phase out plastic from baby wipes line by 2025. In 2019, 15 tons of plastic was removed from Huggies Extra Care wipes and reformulated select packaging, which saves 43 tons of plastic annually.
Andrex’s new packaging will remove 481 tonnes of virgin plastic over the next 12 months
Carbon emissions in the EMEA region have been reduced by 17% since 2015. Through the completion of 30+ carbon reduction projects in 2019, the company has reduced 7,000 tonnes of Carbon dioxide emission per year.
Tristram Wilkinson, President, Europe, Middle East & Africa, Kimberly-Clark, said: “We are focused on delivering material change across key areas such as climate, plastics, fiber and social impact. Already, we have achieved significant milestones in EMEA, including reducing carbon emissions by 17% since 2015. Last year, as part of the WRAP UK Plastics Pact, we launched our Huggies Tiniest Footprint initiative to phase out plastic from our baby wipes. All our brands are accelerating their efforts, for example Andrex and Kleenex who have recently announced significant progress on packaging. This is just one element of a much wider picture of commitment and ambition for industry change. Our mission is to ‘Make Lives Better’ and that can only be done by pushing ourselves to take the actions that meet the expectations of our consumers and communities.”
The new carbon footprint targets laid out in Kimberly-Clark’s 2030 strategy have been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi)
