Fwd: Rachel's #942: CLOROX & GREEN CLEANERS

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>San Francisco Chronicle (Calif.), Jan. 14, 2008

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>

>CLOROX EXPECTS GREENBACKS FROM GREEN CLEANERS

>

>By Ilana DeBare, Chronicle Staff Writer

>

>Clorox bleach and Liquid-Plumr will gain some unlikely siblings today

>- a line of green cleaning products.

>

>The Clorox Co., the Oakland [California] firm that introduced bleach

>to American households a century ago, is adding a series of natural,

>biodegradable household cleaners called Green Works to its $4.8

>billion family of cleaning and household products.

>

>As the first major consumer products firm to launch such a line,

>Clorox has the potential to move green cleaning products beyond the

>niche of Whole Foods-type stores and into the wider world of Wal-Marts

>and suburban supermarkets.

>

>And its new Green Works products will carry the logo of the Sierra

>Club -- a partnership that may raise eyebrows among some of the

>club's members.

>

> " We'll definitely have some folks who are surprised by this decision,

>but also people who are pretty excited about it, " said Sierra Club

>spokeswoman Orli Cotel. " We are supporting Green Works in hopes that

>more people will have access to these kinds of products, some of which

>aren't even available in the middle of the country. "

>

>Analysts said Clorox 's commitment to Green Works -- the company's

>first new brand in 20 years -- is the latest evidence that

>environmentally friendly products are going more mainstream.

>

> " This is a kind of watershed moment, " said Joel Makower, executive

>editor of GreenBiz.com, who did some consulting work for Clorox on

>Green Works. " We finally have major consumer companies taking the

>green marketplace seriously, and not as an afterthought. "

>

>Small companies like Seventh Generation and San Francisco's Method

>Products have made natural cleaning products for years. But they

>amount to only a tiny sliver of the market.

>

>Americans spent over $432 million on all-purpose cleaners in 2007 -

>but only 1 percent of that went to Method and 0.3 percent went to

>Seventh Generation, according to Information Resources Inc.

>

>By comparison, Clorox makes three brands of conventional all-purpose

>cleaners -- Pine-Sol, Clorox Clean-Up and Formula 409 -- that together

>raked in 41 percent of consumer sales.

>

> " There are four reasons this (green) category has been held back, "

>said Matt Kohler, Clorox 's brand manager for Green Works. " There's a

>perception that natural products don't work. They've been very

>expensive. People often have to go to special stores to get them. And

>there's not a brand that consumers know and trust. "

>

>But the green market started looking increasingly attractive to

>Clorox, , which manufactures STP auto care products, Hidden Valley

>salad dressings, Glad plastic bags and Brita water filters along with

>cleaning brands such as Liquid-Plumr and Pine-Sol.

>

>That's because the overall $2.7 billion market for household cleaning

>products isn't growing -- but the green niche is.

>

>Sales of natural cleaning products rose by 23 percent between 2006 and

>2007, according to SPINS, a market research and consulting firm for

>the natural products industry.

>

>And Clorox 's own research concluded that almost half of all consumers

>would be interested in natural cleaning products if they were as

>effective as traditional ones.

>

>So company scientists set about creating cleaners that were at least

>99 percent natural, biodegradable, nontoxic, made from plant- and

>mineral-based ingredients rather than petroleum, and not tested on

>animals.

>

>Clorox chose to keep its own logo on the Green Works label -- unlike

>companies like Colgate-Palmolive, which bought Tom's of Maine, the

>natural toothpaste maker, in 2006 but leaves all mention of its

>ownership off of Tom's product labels.

>

>The idea was to reassure customers who are leery of natural products

>that they would clean as well as Clorox 's more familiar brands.

> " We're putting the Clorox logo prominently on the label to communicate

>that this is a trusted source, " Kohler said.

>

>But Clorox also sought some way to reassure customers that its

>environmental claims were genuine, and not just hype or

> " greenwashing. "

>

>It received certification as a safer product by the Design for the

>Environment program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. And

>it approached the Sierra Club for permission to include the club's

>logo on Green Works labels, beginning this spring.

>

>The Sierra Club asked several of its volunteer committees to review

>Green Works and ended up approving the use of its logo -- the first

>time it has given its blessing to a household cleaning product. In

>return, Clorox will pay the club an undisclosed fee based partly on

>sales.

>

> " We hope we are transforming the marketplace by doing this, " said

>Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope. " These products are clean,

>they're green, they're not going to hurt you, and they're not going to

>hurt the environment. "

>

>However, some other activist groups raised questions about Clorox 's

>overall environmental commitment -- given that its Green Works

>products remain outnumbered by its conventional cleaners.

>

> " We'd like to see them incorporate these practices into all their

>products, " said Erin Thompson, campaign organizer for Women's Voices

>for the Earth, a Montana-based group that advocates for fewer

>chemicals in cleaning products. " Why sell one set of products that

>have hazardous ingredients and others that don't? "

>

>Some environmental experts questioned the Sierra Club 's decision to

>back Green Works without a standardized review process that applies to

>other products, too.

>

> " It sounds risky both to Clorox and the Sierra Club , " said Scot Case

>of TerraChoice Environmental Marketing, which runs a Canadian program

>called EcoLogo that sets environmental standards for products. " I

>would want to know exactly how the Sierra Club made its determination.

>Unless they are going to publish the standard that products have to

>meet, it sounds like a form of greenwashing. "

>

>As part of today's product launch, Clorox will undertake a nationwide

>advertising campaign for Green Works. The products -- which include a

>general purpose cleaner, window cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner,

>dilutable cleaner and bathroom cleaner -- will be available in 24,000

>stores nationally, including Safeway and Wal-Mart.

>

>Colleen Ryan, an analyst for the consumer products research firm

>Mintel, predicted that Green Works will draw buyers away from

>conventional cleaning products rather than from other natural

>products.

>

> " I suspect that most of the people who will be attracted to this are

>not people who are buying Seventh Generation, but more mainstream Wal-

>Mart shoppers with an interest in buying green, " Ryan said. " If

>handled right, this has huge sales potential. "

>

>Seventh Generation president Jeffrey Hollender predicted that other

>major consumer product firms will also announce green cleaning lines

>in 2008. But he denied feeling threatened by his new Goliath-size

>rivals.

>

> " New competitors will only help this category grow faster than it's

>been growing, " said Hollender, whose Vermont firm has been selling

>natural household products for more than 15 years. " The question is,

>do you want a big piece of a small pie or a small piece of a big pie?

>We absolutely want the pie to be as big as possible, even if we have a

>smaller slice.... To address problems environmentally, we need to get

>other businesses involved. "

>

>How to know if cleaners are really green It can be challenging for

>consumers to figure out which cleaning products are truly safer and

>better for the environment.

>

>Unlike foods that are designated as organic, there is no government

>standard for products that call themselves " natural. " Nor does the

>government require companies to list the ingredients of cleaning

>products on their labels.

>

>Clorox lists the ingredients of its Green Works cleaners, for

>instance, but not its conventional products.

>

>What should consumers do? One approach is to make your own cleaning

>products out of benign ingredients like vinegar, lemon juice and

>baking soda.

>

>Another is to look for products that do list their ingredients on the

>package. The Green Guide, an online publication of National

>Geographic, suggests choosing products that contain plant-based

>alcohol instead of other solvents, and plant-oil disinfectants such as

>eucalyptus, rosemary or sage.

>

>The Green Guide also lists some cleaning ingredients to avoid, such as

>volatile organic compounds and glycol ethers. Women's Voices for

>the Earth, an activist group based in Montana, published a July 2007

>report listing cleaning products with potentially hazardous

>ingredients.

>

>What's in a cleaner? More than 99% of the ingredients in Clorox 's new

>Green Works products come from natural, nonpetrochemical sources. Here

>are the ingredients in Green Works' all-purpose cleaning spray, and

>how they compare with conventional cleaning products:

>

>-- Water. This is a primary ingredient in any cleaner.

>

>-- Alkyl polyglucoside. This is a surfactant, or a chemical that

>reduces the surface tension of the cleaning solution so it can get

>under dirt and lift it up. Many conventional cleaning products use

>surfactants made from petrochemicals, but alkyl polyglucoside comes

>from coconut oil.

>

>-- Ethanol SDA-3C. This is a solvent to help dissolve dirt and keep

>the solution stable. Conventional cleaning products often use

>petroleum-based solvents such as glycol ethers. The ethanol in Green

>Works comes from corn oil.

>

>-- Glycerine. This is another solvent, also made from corn oil.

>

>-- Lemon oil. This provides fragrance and comes from lemon peel.

>

>-- Preservative (Kathon). This is derived from petrochemicals and is

>part of the 1 percent of Green Works' spray that is not made from

>natural, renewable ingredients. However, unlike some other

>preservatives, it will biodegrade within 28 days.

>

>-- Milliken Liquitint Blue HP dye and Bright Yellow dye X. These are

>also made from petrochemicals and are part of the 1 percent of the

>product that is not natural. These dyes give the spray its light green

>color.

>

>Source: Clorox Co.

>

>Memo: E-mail Ilana DeBare at idebare.

>

>Copyright © San Francisco Chronicle 2008

 

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