Windex parent company slashes energy consumption, shines up green labeling policy

SC Johnson, the 125-year-old, family-owned company in Racine, Wis., behind such well-known cleaning products as Windex, Pledge and Shout, has had a busy couple of months from a corporate sustainability standpoint.

While the company suffered a public setback when it comes to the "green" claims it makes on its product labels, SC Johnson just realized a significant energy consumption reduction at its main plant in Wisconsin. It also has introduced a new concept in its approach to refills: an effort to distribute them in plastic pouches that use less materials than bottle. (Yes, Virginia, they still are plastic; just less of it.)

So, here's what is going on. First of all, the stuff that SC Johnson would rather put in the past. The company has settled a case that involved two lawsuits that had been filed over its use of the "Greenlist" logo on Windex products in the United States. The complaints suggested it wasn't clear that SC Johnson's logo related to an internally developed system and that it implied the product contained ingredients that were somehow environmentally friendly.

SC Johnson maintains that the label was not meant to confuse consumers, but it agreed to stop using the current logo on Windex products.

Said SC Johnson Chairman and CEO Fisk Johnson:

"We decided to settle for two reasons. First, while we believed we had a strong legal case, in retrospect we could have been more transparent about what the logo signified. Second, and very importantly, Greenlist is such a fundamentally sound and excellent process we use to green our products, that we didn't want consumers to be confused about it due to a logo on one product."

Greenlist covers different processes in SC Johnson product development. For example, the company has removed all polyvinyl chloride and chlorine-bleached paperboard in packaging. According to SC Johnson, it has been used to remove 48 million pounds of volatile organic compounds from its products since 2001.

The legal settlement aside, SC Johnson has made two noteworthy sustainability announcements in the last few weeks.

• The company disclosed that its move to replace more than 700 light fixtures at its largest manufacturing plant in Sturtevant, Wis., helped cut energy consumption by about 35 percent per fixture. (That translates into savings of about 776 tons of greenhouse gas emissions since mid-2010.)
• The company introduced Windex Mini, which is a concentrated refill pack that uses 90 percent less plastic than a traditional 26-ounce bottle. You use it by snipping off the top, pouring the contents into an old bottle, and adding water. Indeed, SC Johnson will cut out the transportation implications of shipping 22.4 fluid ounces per Windex bottle.

Said Fisk Johnson:

"By conservative estimates, a flexible pouch saves six times as much plastic waste that goes into a landfill compared to a traditional bottle. Refilling with a concentrate is an example of a very small behavior change that could make a real difference in minimizing waste. But many people don't want the inconvenience. We want to crack the code and figure out what it would take to make concentrated refills an accepted -- even demanded -- choice."

For now, you won't be able to find the refill pouch at your local grocery store. You will need to buy the product direct.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com