OUR PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGIES
Products and technologies are at the heart of everything we do. We create more value for our customers and consumers by constantly innovating to offer better performance with a reduced ecological footprint. To stand at the side of our stakeholders as a reliable partner, we aim to transform our company and our product portfolio sustainably. Thus, we strive to ensure that each new product contributes to sustainability. Our goal is to offer increasingly better solutions, products and services that also have a positive impact on the environment and society, and therefore make a positive contribution to value.
Our business units in the consumer goods and the business and industrial customer segments align their brands and technologies with the specific sustainability challenges that are most relevant for their product portfolio, and integrate sustainability more strongly into brand and business strategies.
Implementing our Sustainability Strategy
With our pioneering spirit, our knowledge, our products and technologies, we want to enrich and improve the lives of billions every day and shape a viable future for the next generations. In the following you find selected contributions of our products and technologies to our 2030+ Sustainability Ambition Framework:
REGENERATIVE PLANET
Climate
We want our products and technologies to help avoid CO2 emissions from being generated and contribute to improving the efficient use of energy with innovations.
Our Adhesive Technologies business unit continuously optimizes its technologies and solutions to promote resource conservation in our customers’ applications. Our low-temperature adhesives in the Technomelt Supra COOL range, for instance, require a lower processing temperature, meaning that in addition to higher process efficiency, customers can also achieve energy savings of up to 40 percent.
We help consumers by providing products that can reduce energy consumption for warming up water, which cuts the related CO2 emissions. With our Laundry & Home Care products Colour Catcher laundry sheets and Somat dishwasher cleaner, customers can reduce the number of washing cycles. In addition, leave-in conditioners and dry shampoos from Consumer Brands do not require warm water for rinsing.
Circularity
To continue promoting the circular economy in our business operations, we are focusing on reducing production waste and increasing recycling at our sites, as well as on innovative, intelligent and sustainable packaging concepts. In addition to new product forms and the use of recyclable and recycled plastics in our packaging, we also use refillable packaging.
We are testing a variety of approaches to meet the demand from consumers and distributors for reusable packaging and refills. These refill solutions are designed either as a home solution or for purchasing products from a refill station to fill existing packaging. Under our premium brand Authentic Beauty Concept, we are testing refill solutions for the hair salon business. With the help of the "Refill Bar”, hair salon visitors can refill their favorite products repeatedly in a bottle made of recycled material. We also offer refill solutions with refill bags and concentrates in Europe and North America, for example for our Pril und Dial brands.
We also promote a circular economy by developing innovative adhesive solutions that enable recycling, repair and reuse of products and their components.
Natural Ressources
Henkel is committed to responsible management of raw materials, and especially the conservation of natural resources and biodiversity. We use ingredients based on renewable raw materials to optimize the overall characteristics of our products, wherever this is compatible with environmental, economic and social considerations.
Thus, many of our consumer and industrial adhesives are based on nature-based raw materials, such as plant-based oils and their derivatives, as well as tree resin and carbohydrates like starch, sugar and cellulose. Our Pritt glue stick, for example, is formulated with 97 percent natural ingredients (including water). We also pioneer new solutions for adhesives, sealants and coatings that replace fossil raw materials with materials made from biomass. For example, we have developed a high-performance hotmelt adhesive made of over 80 percent bio-based materials and with a significantly reduced carbon footprint. We work with our suppliers to ensure sustainable sourcing of natural resources.
THRIVING COMMUNITIES
Equity
We aim to promote access to high-quality education and increase the number of young people and adults with relevant abilities and skills. In particular, girls and women should be supported in becoming more self-confident and building a successful future for themselves.
This is why the Fritz Henkel Stiftung and the brand Taft sponsor the annual Schwarzkopf Million Chances Award, which honors non-profit projects for their outstanding commitment to supporting girls and women.
Education
We support lifelong learning and education both in our company and in our communities. Since 2010, Schwarzkopf Professional has been working with non-profit organizations to offer young adults the opportunity to obtain training in basic hairdressing techniques and the basics of setting up a hair salon business so that they can establish livelihoods.
The volunteer efforts of hairstylists and employees have made it possible to train over 2,900 young adults in more than 30 countries, including Armenia, Lebanon, Myanmar, Poland, the Philippines and Spain.
Another example is the Pritt “We craft for children” initiative. Since its launch in 1969, the Pritt brand has supported the development of the motor and creative skills of children via handicrafts at school and in everyday life. For many years, Henkel has been committed to numerous educational projects worldwide with its global We craft for children initiative, in cooperation with a large number of non-profit organizations. In 2023, Pritt entered into new partnerships with non-profit organizations in Brazil, Germany, Italy, Mexico and Türkiye that are dedicated to improving the learning conditions and quality of education in schools.
Wellbeing
The partnership between our professional hair care and styling brand Authentic Beauty Concept and the Sustainable Guar Initiative (SGI) contributes to both our commitment to the use of ingredients made from renewable raw materials while improving the livelihood of smallholder farmers.
The SGI, a cooperation by the non-profit organization Technoserve and the company Solvay, educates and promotes sustainable agricultural practices among 3,000 guar bean farmers in 27 villages in the desert regions of Rajasthan, India. As part of the project, farmers are trained to sow, cultivate and harvest guar plants in a sustainable and productive way under fair working conditions.
The farmers and their families are supported in planting vegetable gardens from which they can harvest edible plants, and they also receive training on health and nutrition.
TRUSTED PARTNER
Performance
Excellent quality and performance are the central value propositions for our brands and technologies, and create the foundation for our business success. Products that combine high performance with a reduced environmental footprint are key factors for successful future-oriented business development.
We have been working with BASF since 2022 to increase the amount of renewable raw materials used to produce the ingredients in hair and body care products, as well as in laundry detergents and household cleaners. We apply the biomass balance approach, which combines renewable raw materials from Europe with fossil raw materials to produce ingredients. Somat and Perwoll products containing ingredients certified under this system have been available in Germany since 2023, and their packaging indicates the use of this mass balance approach.
In addition, Henkel and Shell Chemical LP entered into a five-year cooperation in 2023 with the aim of replacing fossil raw materials with renewable materials in the production of surfactants for detergents.
Transparency
To pioneer in transparency we are part of Catena-X, a pan-European network that aims to standardize the methodology for calculating footprints and the associated data exchange for all participants in the automotive value chain.
Henkel partnered with cosmetics companies Unilever, LVMH, L’Oréal and Natura to establish an Eco Beauty Score Consortium (EBS) in 2021. EBS now brings together more than 70 companies and associations from around the world. The goal of the initiative is to develop an industry-wide system for assessing the environmental impact of cosmetic products to make it easier for consumers to make sustainable shopping decisions. This approach, which is based on the latest research, is designed to take into account the entire product life cycle. We also have plans to create a database of standard cosmetic ingredients and their environmental impact and the PEF-based impact categories. After two years of scientific work, a first prototype of the scoring systems was a key milestone for the EBS in 2023.
Collaboration
In collaboration with our partners, we aim to maximize the impact of our sustainability activities by driving sustainability in our value chains and beyond.
Since 2013, Henkel has been involved in smallholder projects to produce sustainable palm oil together with the development organization Solidaridad. The focus is on training in best practice approaches, including climate- friendly agriculture, along with exerting an influence on policy and involving stakeholders. To date, more than 39,300 smallholder farmers have been reached and trained on more than 351,900 hectares under cultivation.
