2. Social innovation at Work Monterey – June 9, 2011 Dan Lawson, Ph.D. Manager – Global Sustainability SC Johnson & Son, Inc.
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5. SCJ Sustainability Targets Increase use of better/best-rated raw materials Helping promote family well-being via sustainable businesses at the base-of-pyramid Reduce total Carbon Footprint Reduce Waste throughout the life cycle Greener Chemistry Reduced Planet Impact Stronger Communities
15. Innovating at the Base of Pyramid “ Foam” Cleaning Method Low-cost air freshener
16. Base of Pyramid Impact BoP business impact OLD NEW Water Usage 14ml 6ml Soap Usage 47ml 21ml Toilet Duck Usage 41ml 13ml Toilets per Day 18 27 Daily Team Profit 594 Ksh 1404 Ksh
21. Thank you Dan Lawson Manager – Global Sustainability SC Johnson & Son, Inc.
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Editor's Notes
Social Innovation at Work Session Speakers: Chris Librie SC Johnson seeks to engage the consumer who lives on $2 a day by developing sustainable businesses at the base-of-the-pyramid. In Kenya, Rwanda and Ghana, SC Johnson is learning what it takes to grow in emerging economies with responsibility and compassion. Chris Librie, SC Johnson's Director of Global Sustainability, will discuss his company's successes and occasional pitfalls on the road to socially innovative base-of-pyramid businesses.
As this is a Racine audience, I know you know who SC Johnson is, but you ’d be surprised how many audiences I meet who congratulate me on our fine Band Aids and Baby Shampoo And anyway it ’s a nice picture of the SCJ campus on a sunnier, warmer day As you also know, SCJ is in it ’s fifth generation of family ownership – under the leadership of Fisk Johnson
You may not know some of our great brands around the world SCJ operates in four main business areas Air Care – Glade Home Cleaning – Windex, Pledge & Scrubbing Bubbles Pest Control – Raid & OFF Home Storage – Ziploc Now here ’s another outside perspective on sustainability…
Natural pyrethrum is one of the oldest known natural insecticides as is derived from the seed pods of old world chrysanthemums. It is a short lived perennial plant and takes 2-3 years before reaching it ’s highest production capacity. Apart from modern agricultural based production located in Tazmania, more cooperative based approaches have existed in Africa for many years notably based out of Kenya and here in Rwanda. For reference, the hills in the distance are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
In 2008, SC Johnson held meetings with Rwandan pyrethrum farmers to understand their needs and challenges We learned a number of things: Basic agronomic knowledge had been lost in the Rwandan genocide and not redeveloped since the peace Chrysanthemums are not a difficult crop to cultivate, but there was a lot of lost learning about planting, weeding and harvesting For instance farmers were plowing their flowers under after one year, when chrysanthemum yields increase significantly in years two and three Drying tables had been destroyed, so the flowers were being dried on the ground with a significant loss in pyrethrum content Unscrupulous middle men had infiltrated the buying chain, cutting into the farmers ’ margins and slowing – or even eliminating – cash payments to farmers As a result, pyrethrum was discredited as a cash crop and in serious decline – so a partnership was formed with the Borlaug institute and Texas A&M and joint support from USAID and sc johnson to redevelop this cash crop industry and the base of the pyramid.
Build You can see the team meeting with one of our cooperative leaders That ’s one of our largest cooperatives There are some of the new drying tables we provided And a GPS unit – one of a half dozen which we ’re using to map the cooperatives so we can track productivity in tons and pyrethrum content
This was the decline I referenced earlier Over the 5 years prior to our project An almost total collapse in production – or metric tons of pyrethrum And the pyrethrum content of the flowers had almost halved from 1.6% to 0.9% Something the team there has been able to reverse completely during the life of the project
Build ++++++++++++ Next Slide We are confident that we are on the “road” to recovering the pyrethrum supply through these efforts. This ad is currently on-air here in the US
Mathare is called a settlement because it isn ’t a real township. Most of the homes are improvised from scrap sheet metal and wooden boards. Needless to say, there is virtually no internal plumbing. In fact, there ’s limited supplies of running water. Instead, the residents in areas like this rely on public toilets – which charge a fee. Those Mathare residents lucky enough to live in government-built apartment buildings share communal toilets on each floor. And there are plenty of other public toilet facilities in the schools and business areas around Mathare. This is the opportunity SCJ identified in working with the local community. These public and communal toilets were poorly maintained, and poor hygiene led to absenteeism at work and in school, exacerbating the poor economic situation.
This is one example of shifting from an NGO/project type operation to a more business-focused and entrepreneurial way of operating. We used to hold workshops to train new teams but this was a vestige of the NGO-based approach and we have since abandoned it for a much more no-nonsense, “ get dirty ” action-learning approach. Nothing conveys the reality of the business better than actually performing services. We are also developing better mentoring programs for new and potential entrepreneurs to learn from current teams.
Foam cleaning method uses half the water Teams now mix the water and cleaner into a foam by pouring them back and forth between two buckets. The foam stays on the wall for a thorough scrubbing, and requires about half as much water and cleaner. The team has since identified the potential to switch from dish soap to SC Johnson ’s Mr. Muscle® brand low-cost kitchen cleaner. It cleans well but without as many suds as dish soap, meaning less rinsing is required. Low-cost air freshener Together, we found an effective, low-cost solution: an SC Johnson toilet gel product distributed under the Duck® and Scrubbing Bubbles® brand names. Designed to be stamped out of a dispenser in developed market-type toilet bowls for cleaning and odor control, the gel turned out to have great potential for the developing market, too. A dollop of gel in the toilet area freshens the air for seven to 10 days, and in a form that stays put. In addition, it allows SC Johnson to repurpose excess gel from the routine manufacturing process. By providing a barrel of the gel to CCS instead of disposing of it, we cut material handling and disposal fees.
Team based innovations from the ground up enabled significant reductions in water, soap, and product and increased the number of toilets cleaned per day with commensurate increases in Daily Team profits. Public toilets were impacted by CCS ’ services with overall cleanliness of these public facilities were on par with modern public bathrooms.
SCJ / Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, co-funded program to develop a sustainable business providing BoP consumer pest control products to help prevent malaria Working with Cornell University Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise; project kicked-off in February 2010 Applying may of the lessons learned in Rwanda and Kenya…which are (next slide)
Get involved – understand the business challenges Those meetings with the Rwandan farmers; Mathare settlement residents were critical to diagnose the problems and build our action plans Build business idea in collaboration with community – innovate! Well illustrated in our work in Rwanda and Kenya Find partners – leverage the multiplicative effect We are not agronomists; so we reached out to Texas A&M and we were able to engage USAID and – with their help - increase the overall financial support Likewise, we are collaborating with the Gates Foundation and Cornell in Ghana Set metrics – measure everything you do; course-correct We ’ve got clear metrics around everything – not just pyrethrum tonnage and content, but the health and education parts of the Rwanda program as well And our adjustments to the Mathare project were instrumental in reducing water and product usage while improving cleaning efficacy Provide the resources – stay close since “out of sight” is “out of mind” Our BoP project manager is based in Nairobi, Kenya – only an hour flight from Kigali, Rwanda and in range of Accra, Ghana HQ-based SCJ personnel visit quarterly to reinforce our commitment Make a difference! Drive the triple bottom line
