ACI Working to Clean Up Cleaning with Sustainable Feedstocks Initiative

At first mention, the idea of “feedstocks” might not correlate to the
everyday cleaning products most of us use. However, these raw materials are the
literal foundation that build some of our most used products — including bar
soap, laundry detergent and other household cleaners.

“These ingredients ultimately end up in consumer products,” American Cleaning
Institute (ACI) president and CEO
Melissa Hockstad told
Sustainable Brands® (SB).

“Feedstock” is a broad foundational term used across a number of industries. But
for the cleaning business, ingredients such as petroleum, palm oil and other
oil-based products create the base for surfactants — a key part of how
cleaning products do their job. A 2023 American Chemical Society
report
estimates that more than 15 million tons of surfactants are used worldwide
annually, and up to 60 percent of them find their way into various aquatic
environments.

Last February, ACI launched the Sustainable Feedstocks
Initiative
to bring more clarity to the supply chain around these feedstocks and to help
partner companies find new and less environmentally impactful ways to create the
key cleaning properties of their goods without sacrificing performance. The
initiative has led to the development of a roadmap that helps member companies
meet goals that support not only better environmental practices but their own
business goals.

The initiative has steadily gained popularity since its launch and has become a
key tenet of ACI’s sustainability program. We caught up with Hockstad ahead of a
deeper dive on the subject this week at SB ‘24 San
Diego to
learn more about the initiative and how companies have found value in
participating.

What kinds of companies have signed onto the Sustainable Feedstocks Initiative? Are there everyday cleaning products connected to this supply chain effort that average consumers would recognize?

Melissa Hockstad: Several companies are a part of the initiative, including
Henkel — which produces all,
Dial, Purex and Sun (among other products) and has a global
workforce of around 48,000. Other ACI members that are involved aren’t
necessarily household names but provide ingredients like surfactants, enzymes
and fragrances to cleaning product formulators and brand owners.

Are there particular product certifications that materials found in this supply chain help support?

MH: We provide recommendations for each feedstock. Depending on the
feedstock, there are a variety of certifications that help guide members. The
feedstocks with available certifications are palm oil, coconut oil, sugar and
paper fiber (used in wipes), including:

Where has this initiative made the most progress in creating a better raw material supply chain? Where does work remain?

MH: Oil-derived surfactants make up a large volume of cleaning products.
Most of the members joining the initiative are moving to certified, plant-based
alternatives
like coconut and palm oils as a potential way of reducing the impact of making
their products. For example, 60 percent of members have committed to using
RSPO-certified palm oil, and many are aiming to reach 100 percent usage
throughout their supply chains.

What are some examples of the initiative’s impact so far?

MH: Chemical and compound provider Evonik built the world’s first
industrial-scale production
plant
to produce rhamnolipids — a type of surfactant that’s created through
fermentation of fully renewable and natural feedstock. This particular
rhamnolipid uses sugar as the only feedstock, cultivated from corn that’s grown
near the production plant. The company expects that this surfactant can reduce
the need for polymers, builders and stabilizers in product production; and it
eliminates the need for solvents. This all leads to less energy use throughout
the production process.

Another example is ingredient supplier
Novonesis, which has been using
advanced biotechnology tools to source and refine natural enzymes that make
laundry cleaning products better while drawing fewer resources. The company is
working towards wide-scale adoption of bio-based ingredients that work just as
well in cold
water,
and follow a more compact formulation that makes the final product easier to
transport and use.

Lastly, ingredient and fragrance supplier IFF has spent
more than a decade working on ‘Designed Enzymatic
Biomaterials,’
which could potentially replace fossil fuel-based cleaning polymers in the long
term. These are already in early use across home care, personal care and
industrial applications. This work is happening in tandem with more education
around using efficient dishwashers and creating better enzyme-based cleaners
that perform just as well during a normal dishwasher’s ‘eco’ cycle.

How successful has implementation of the Screening Level Life Cycle Assessment (tracking material longevity across high-priority cleaning products) been so far?

MH: We have created a database of screening level LCAs for common cleaning
products ingredients. This is available to our member companies to use. We see
the database as a way for them to examine how changes in their procurement
practices alter their environmental impacts (like going from a petroleum-based
source to a plant-based
source). To prevent
climate or carbon tunnel
vision,
we include six impact categories for all of the ingredients: climate change,
water consumption, fossil fuel use, land use, mineral resource
scarcity and freshwater eutrophication (oxygen depletion in a body of
water). Oftentimes, a decrease in one impact area may lead to an increase in
another. By better understanding what shifting to different raw materials means
to your environmental impact, you can better address those impacts more
holistically. We also hope this tool increases the use of Life Cycle thinking in
the cleaning products supply chain and encourages our member company to take on
the work of analyzing their own product carbon footprints. With this work, we
hope to move collectively towards a more sustainable cleaning product supply
chain.

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Sustainable Brands Staff

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Published Oct 15, 2024 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST