Gamechangers: Bill Morrissey @ The Clorox Company

Recently, I stumbled upon this presentation on Slideshare.

It gave me a really interesting “insider” perspective into how Clorox made an obvious shift in strategy in regards to environmental stewardship and corporate social responsibility. Bill Morrissey, the Vice President of Environmental Sustainability, played a huge role in developing this new eco-strategy.

In 2007, when The Clorox Company was given a score of 1 (out of 100) in the inaugural Climate Counts rankings (the rankings have a comprehensive 22-criteria scorecard available here), the company decided that it needed to change its ways and do its part in ensuring that future generations can have a healthy and desirable environment to live in. They created an Eco Office that executed the company’s “sustainability strategy”, and Bill Morrissey returned to The Clorox Company after acting as the COO of Naturize Biosciences.

Bill outlines in his presentation (the video is also available here) how the company has not only acquired or architected “green brands”, but have found ways to profit from these brands as well. The successes of Brita and Greenworks is admirable, and Burt’s Bees penetration has also evidently skyrocketed in the past couple of years. Even I have noticed it in more and more distribution channels! (I love their lip balms!)

It’s also quite remarkable how Brita achieved such growth in sales simply from a marketing campaign. As my group is working on a social marketing plan to discourage the consumption/purchase of plastic water bottles, I am pleased with Brita’s campaign that highlights the number of water bottles it is diverging from landfills if consumers use one Brita filter; however, in Vancouver, our tap water is completely safe for direct consumption, and the act of filtering is really quite unnecessary.

After a little research (Googling) of the event where Bill’s presentation originated from, I found that it’s an annual conference that brings together sustainability, brand, and innovation professionals. It sounds really cool and I’d love to attend one day! This year’s is in San Diego from June 3rd to 6th. If I didn’t already have travel plans for May, I’d definitely head down to California for this!

Source.