Looking good on more than paper

$21bn paper product and nappy maker Kimberly-Clark began setting five year sustainability goals in 1994. The latest, Sustainability 2015, is a 10-point agenda that ranges from social programmes to waste fill to the introduction of environmentally innovative products. Lisa Morden, senior director, global sustainability, gives a glimpse into the company’s current sustainability mindset

On board since its beginning, Lisa Morden, says the change that stands out the most is the expanded focus from just the manufacturing footprint to the end user. “That is what keeps me in sustainability,” said Morden, “It changes so rapidly and dramatically.” Kimberly-Clark (K-C), which has operations in 37 countries, has earned inclusion in the Dow Jones Sustainability NA Index and the UN Global Compact 100. It also received A+ from GRI for its sustainability reporting.

Q Kimberly-Clark’s efforts are quite far reaching. What do you see as your standout programmes?
A Our strategy is divided into three buckets – people, planet and products. The ones I enjoy most are the ones that touch all three, like our water use and water replenishment program. As a tissue manufacturer we require water and restore water to parts of the world where we have operations. We currently return 94%. The remainder is lost in the process or remains in products. Our goal is to close the gap in increments of 200 million gallons per year over a 10 year period.

Q Can you give an example of a water-related programme?
A In pursuit of this goal, K-C introduced safe-water initiatives in El Salvador and Columbia in 2012. We call this Water for Life. In Columbia we began by providing clean drinking water in the homes of our employees by installing filtration units. Then we provided safe water and sanitation in local schools, followed by coordinating clean water and sanitation programmes with a nearby NGO that hosted after school activities. These projects, along with others in India and Israel, helped us meet our annual goal last year. 

Q How involved are your employees?
A Our employees are critical to drive our progress. You can’t really run these programmes from a small central team. Among the 2015 goals is to establish socially-focused programmes in all K-C communities. [Currently the company has reached 89%, up from 62% in 2011]. In the Columbia project our local team helped renovate bathrooms in the schools and then provided clean-hands hygiene education for the students. They also assembled volunteers to complete other repairs at the schools. In the US we have the Huggies `Every Little Bottom’ programme that supports diaper banks around the country. It is a big social challenge. It costs an average $18 a week, and one in three US mums suffer from diaper need. We help them get through that. Our employees drove support through donation programs that totaled $19m last year. Employee involvement is also essential to our ‘Lean Energy’ initiative which is about continuous improvement and energy conservation. We have been implementing smart metering in mill operations. 
Employees have real time information on energy they are using and can make live-time decisions to improve it. In El Salvador we’ve saved $1.8m, and are expanding this to other plants.

Q What else are you making progress with?
A A lot of our products contain wood fibre. As part of our responsible sourcing goals, we set a target that all of our fiber suppliers are certified by one of five recognized forest recertification systems. Forests are really important to our business for business continuity. Last year we achieved 100% certification of our suppliers. We don’t just mandate, it is really a working partnership. 

Q Forest sustainability is crucial to your business. Tell us more.
A It is certainly an area where we want to be seen as a leader. We have cool innovation coming along that explores alternative sources of fibre, such as a broad range of bamboo and wheat straw.

Q How are you progressing with post-consumer waste?
A It is a concern of ours. On the Huggies diaper brand, we are really hoping a pilot project in New Zealand is scalable. It is conducted in partnership with Envirocomp and a team of mums and dads who bring diapers to the facility where some material is composted and some extracted. Another example is in North America where our Blue ReNew initiative assists healthcare facilities recycle clean, used KimGuard Sterilization Wrap.