We are taking steps to achieve our vision of excellence in environmental stewardship and sustainable innovation in respect to our brands by introducing sustainability into our innovation and product development process and providing our employees with the knowledge and tools they need to identify applications of environmental sustainability as they innovate our brands.
Examples include our Newell Consumer group’s launch of several recycled writing instrument products including the Paper Mate® EarthWrite™ Recycled Pencils made from 100 percent recycled content and Paper Mate® Write Bros.® Recycled Ballpoint Stick Pens, made from 80 percent recycled material.
Our Shur-Line brand recently launched an eco-oriented paint brush and roller line with the following environmental attributes:
Brushes
- Handles are 100 percent bamboo
- Bristles are 100 percent recycled polyester
- Metal ferrule is made from recycled aluminum
- Packaging is made from 100 percent recycled material
Rollers
- Roller fabric is made of 100 percent recycled materials
- Packaging is biodegradable
Our products are becoming more sustainable by efforts such as applying a life cycle approach in product development. We have acquired Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) software and are teaching our employees about the kinds and uses of information an LCA provides about the environmental effects of products. In our Newell Consumer group, product developers are using LCA applications to determine the environmental effects of mechanical pencils and stick pens and how switching from virgin resin to recycled resin may help lower the impacts. As we innovate green, we will continue to expand our green product offering.
We are developing knowledge of green labeling and certification to identify marketing opportunities for our existing and new products. For example, our corporate environment and sustainability team collaborated with Rubbermaid's product marketing team to achieve GreenGuard™ certification for its ventilated, wire-shelving closet line. This “green” certification will differentiate the wire shelving from competitive products by virtue of its low chemical emissions and use of recycled steel, an edge that Rubbermaid believes will grow sales and increase market share.
Our corporate packaging team is using tools such as Value Analysis to determine the “right sizes” for our packaging resulting in smaller and more efficient packaging. In the case of a Sharpie™ package, they reduced the amount of plastic by 59 percent while improving beneficial packaging features like theft deterrence and advertising space. The packaging team is continuing to collaborate globally internally and working with outside organizations like the Forest Stewardship Council™ (FSC) to secure green certifications for our packaging.