SC Johnson - Product Design

Designing with the environment in mind

In 1996, Environmental Defense and SC Johnson created a partnership to integrate environmental considerations into the design of SC Johnson's consumer products and packaging. The project involved two major work streams:

• creating practical tools to identify environmental considerations at the earliest stages of new product development, and
• addressing consumers' environmental needs in the conception and marketing of "greener" products.

Environmental Defense developed a comprehensive set of metrics to help SCJ engineers compare the environmental impacts of different packaging materials.

From 1999 to 2001, Environmental Defense partnered with Bristol-Myers Squib, whose brands include Excedrin, to use these metrics to create an easy-to-use software program called MERGE (Managing Environmental Resources, Guidance and Evaluation). As a tool for packaging designers, MERGE requires only basic data on packaging components, size and weight, and quickly generates environmental profiles of packaging design alternatives.

Goals

• Enable cost-effective environmental evaluation in product design
• Evaluate consumer preferences

Project background

The idea to form a joint task force grew out of a 1995 visit to SC Johnson by Environmental Defense executive director Fred Krupp.

By April 1996, Environmental Defense and SC Johnson had initiated a team project to identify ways to conceptualize, design, develop and review the company's consumer products and packaging with the environment in mind. Environmental Defense brought to the table several scientists, a marketing specialist and a research analyst while SC Johnson enlisted environmental, product development, product safety and marketing staff members.

The long-term vision was to integrate environmental strategy with new product development, business strategy and marketing. In support of this vision, we undertook four initiatives:

1. Build an environmental design framework
2. Introduce environmental considerations at the beginning of product conceptualization
3. Develop a standard and consistent approach to environmental improvement
4. Create specific packaging improvements.

Our work was based on an important fundamental fact: the earlier environmental objectives are introduced in the overall product development process, the greater the resulting environmental and business benefits. Our challenge was to create both the conceptual framework and the procedural mechanisms for this to occur within SC Johnson's stage-gate product design and commercialization process.

Packaging background information

Packaging has become ubiquitous in American society. It represents roughly one-third of municipal waste in the United States, and has expanded rapidly in recent times. For example, over 150 billion beverage containers are sold annually in the U.S. Typical packaging materials include cardboard, paper, glass, tin, aluminum and a wide variety of plastics such as polystyrene (styrofoam) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). 

The greatest environmental problems associated with packaging arise in its manufacture. Scarce resources are used and a variety of pollutants are emitted in the manufacturing process. Additional impacts occur when the packaging is thrown away, often within minutes of its purchase. Yet packaging plays a crucial role in commerce, protecting the integrity, cleanliness, and freshness of goods.

Results

• Developed software tool named MERGE to assess and improve the environmental profile of product packaging

Ripple Effect

The Sustainable Packaging Coalition and its partner GreenBlue are using and maintaining MERGE as a tool for major companies such as Dow, Nike and Unilever to improve their packaging.

Posted: 14-Sep-2009; Updated: 14-Sep-2009