At Colgate-Palmolive, fighting climate change isn’t about one big idea. It’s about seeking out, hunting down and implementing hundreds of ideas across our business, including manufacturing.

As an ENERGY STAR® Partner company, Colgate’s global manufacturing sites have been taking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR® Challenge for Industry since 2011.

The goal? Improve each participating factory’s energy efficiency by at least 10% within a five-year period.

I’m thrilled to announce that our plants in Boksburg, South Africa, Cali, Colombia, Guatemala City, Guatemala and Rillieux, France have earned ENERGY STAR® Challenge for Industry Achiever status for 2019. And they’re in good company.

To date, 83% of our eligible global manufacturing sites have achieved this status. That’s 33 Colgate factories in 23 countries that have collectively avoided using more than 3.2 trillion BTUs [British Thermal Units] of energy through their award-winning efforts. [That’s enough power to provide electricity to almost 90,000 U.S. homes for a year.]  Some of our plants have won multiple times. That means they reduced their energy intensity by at least 10%, set a new energy intensity baseline for usage and took it down another 10% or more. Such a great example of living our C-P values:  continuous improvement, global teamwork and caring for people and the planet.

In manufacturing, “energy intensity” is analogous to your car’s gas mileage. 

Using utility bills and production reports, a factory documents the amount of energy it needs to produce one metric ton of product. That’s its “energy intensity” baseline benchmark. Teams then seek myriad ways to cut energy consumption, improving that efficiency ratio, producing more goods [like driving farther] on less fuel — including natural gas, fuel oil, LPG (liquified petroleum gas), purchased electricity, coal and purchased steam.

One method to find energy savings?  Our focused (and fun) Energy Treasure Hunts.

Each participating factory designates a team of 25 to 40 treasure-hunters for a 3-day swarm of the facility, searching for energy waste and brainstorming opportunities for improvement.  [Some teams create festive shirts for the event, signalling “something big is happening” to all employees.] 

We recruit participants from all aspects of the business, not just operations folks. Fresh eyes from an HR rep or quality lab technician often spot problem areas that might go unseen by an engineer blinded by familiarity. 

Above all, we ask our energy treasure-hunters to question everything. Why is that motor running when the production line is stopped? Why are those lights on? Is that chiller optimized? How old is that boiler --- and could a replacement deliver significant ROI? How could we recover the heat coming off this equipment and use it? Could we lower this pressure setting and achieve the same results? 

Teams report back their findings and analyze which improvements should be undertaken, when and how.  Some ideas involve significant capital projects, but many, many more are simple changes that yield significant energy savings almost immediately. Such swift action also boosts morale as workers see their impact on operations; participants become sustainability ambassadors who promote energy vigilance on an enduring basis.  

Colgate People have undertaken dozens of Energy Treasure Hunts over the years. In 2019 alone, six factories went hunting and generated 356 energy reduction ideas that could potentially reduce their energy consumption by an estimated 39,000 MWh, decrease their CO2 emissions by an estimated 14,917 metric tons and, of course, lower their energy costs. A triple win. 

Whatever motivates your team — sustainability gains, industry awards, intra-company competition — I urge you to mobilize around energy savings and share your progress stories. Combating climate change takes all of us — companies big and small — taking action now and encouraging others by example. Join us!