Life Cycle Thinking:
Driving Product Development,
Innovation & Marketing
PE INTERNATIONAL (PE) worked with Johnson & Johnson to develop their
proprietary Earthwards® process comprised of a product evaluation scorecard,
governance system, and third party assurance process. Today, Earthwards® recognized
products lead by example. They compete favorably in the market, successfully address
consumer preference for environmentally thoughtful products and transparent,
relevant sustainability claims. Earthwards® recognized products also deliver clear,
meaningful impacts.
The Earthwards® product development and
innovation process at Johnson & Johnson has
successfully positioned life cycle thinking
within marketing, communications, and
brand - driving innovation deeper into
the organization’s culture. It started as
a way for product teams to assess the
social and environmental impacts of
a product across its full life cycle, and
today, Earthwards® ensures that products
improve in ways that positively impact
consumers, the planet, and the bottom line.
Life Cycle Thinking
MEANINGFUL IMPACTS
Differentiated by design and messaging, the
Earthwards® process has the goal of delivering 60
recognized products by 2015. While 60 products
may seem small for such a large company,
they will represent exceptional products that
achieve substantial improvements. Further, even
products which are not ‘recognized’ benefit from
participation and insights from the program
itself. Johnson & Johnson’s extensive family of
pharmaceutical products, for example, has the
potential for considerable impact reduction due
to the inherent complexity and longer lifetime of
these products.
Johnson & Johnson is an entity that operates in 60
countries with over 250 subsidiaries. Because they
produce medical devices, pharmaceuticals, as well
as some of the world’s most recognized consumer
packaged goods, reducing product impacts
strategically across their brands becomes the goal.
NEUTROGENA® NATURALS
PURIFYING FACIAL CLEANSER
›› Sales will help promote
clean water projects in
the United States
›› Packaging contains
30% post-consumer
recycled content
›› Product formulation
leverages natural plant
derived ingredients where
possible and the average
of the line is 94% natural
Life Cycle Thinking: Driving Product Development, Innovation & Marketing
PRODUCT EVALUATION SCORECARD AND PROCESS
When developing the Earthwards® process, PE supported Johnson & Johnson
in identifying seven material categories where they would focus their efforts in
order to achieve their corporate goal of reducing environmental impacts.
Products that successfully emerge from the Earthwards® process are typically
recognized if they have achieved improvement in at least three of the following
seven categories: materials, packaging, energy reduction, waste reduction,
water reduction, positive social impact or benefit, and product innovation.
MATERIALS
PACKAGING
ENERGY
WASTE
WATER
The Earthwards® process consists of four steps. While the first two are required
for all of Johnson & Johnson’s new products, the final two steps are available for
products that have significant sustainability improvements and are pursuing
Earthwards® recognition:
1.Satisfy prerequisites: Teams ask a series of questions to evaluate risks
and ensure compliance to relevant product stewardship regulations.
2.Life Cycle Screening: Team takes the product through a screening that
examines and prioritizes the product impacts across the full life cycle from
material sourcing to end-of-life.
3.Identify Potential Improvements: A product which shows significant
improvements in three or more categories can qualify as an Earthwards®
recognized product.
4.Review: Product team submits results to a review board to determine if
the product warrants Earthwards® recognition.
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SOCIAL
INNOVATION
Life Cycle Thinking: Driving Product Development, Innovation & Marketing
GOVERNANCE SYSTEM & THIRD
PARTY ASSURANCE
BUILDING LIFE CYCLE THINKING
INTO PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
PE helped Johnson & Johnson develop the overall
governance system for Earthwards® to enable
a consistent yet flexible approach required
to successfully implement the Earthwards®
process as it is scaled. To ensure its credibility,
the Earthwards® process undergoes annual
auditing. Through smart planning, auditors have
access to the necessary information at the right
time, cutting down auditing time and effort
and making sure that the process of improving
products can continue.
PE has always known that a simple life cycle
assessment (LCA) screening is a powerful tool to
encourage life cycle thinking. While understanding
raw materials is a natural first step, end-of-life has
traditionally been beyond the scope of product
development teams. Johnson & Johnson has
embedded LCA screening as part of the Earthwards®
process, and today, life cycle thinking including
the consideration of end-of-life, is an integral part
of the product teams approach. For example, the
Earthwards® team works directly with product
teams during development of product concepts
to secure significant improvement across at least
three Earthwards goal areas. Having identified
these areas of opportunity, the Earthwards® team
leads on-demand, eco-innovation sessions
designed to explore and develop new ideas quickly,
with the highest level of durability.
“
The use of lifecycle thinking is reinforced by the
market response to successful products. For
areas where Johnson & Johnson has adopted
lean manufacturing ideas internally, LCA acts as
a tool to help show improvements in key areas to
customers, like energy use or packaging reduction,
and also it helps identify actual savings across the
lifecycle, including in customer supply chains.
“
The governance system is comprised of a Review
Board consisting of Johnson & Johnson product
developers and brand owners, as well as external
subject matter experts from organizations
such as Practice Greenhealth, the S.C. Johnson
Business School at Cornell University, and
World Wildlife Fund. The Board reviews each
application for Earthwards® recognition, thereby
ensuring strict quality standards and brand
reputation. UL Environment provides ongoing
annual assurance review of the Earthwards®
process and verifies that process guidelines and
minimum requirements are met.
Earthwards® has become a branded change management process
that frames credibility-based decisions in new terms. It recognizes,
improves, celebrates and communicates our commitment to Our
Credo Values to customers and provides value back to the company.
— Keith Sutter, Sr. Product Director, Johnson & Johnson
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Life Cycle Thinking: Driving Product Development, Innovation & Marketing
MEANINGFUL
SUSTAINABILITY CLAIMS
Earthwards® gives Johnson & Johnson the
confidence they need to communicate clearly
why these products are preferred. Earthwards® is
not an eco-label; you won’t find it on a Johnson
& Johnson product. But you will find claims about
the environmental and social performance of
products on product packaging and web sites.
In a world awash in sustainability claims, Johnson
& Johnson has integrated life cycle thinking into
marketing successfully. At the intersection of life
cycle thinking, market intelligence, sustainability
claims and customer preference, Johnson &
Johnson now looks at the most relevant, salient,
and impactful parts of product manufacturing and
finds ways to communicate and reduce impacts
where it counts. That means that the insights
and achievements from the Earthwards® process
now communicate real product improvements
that actually matter both on the shelf and in
customer’s lives.
“Earthwards® has two purposes,”
says Al Iannuzzi, Senior Director,
Worldwide Environment, Health
& Safety and leader of the
Earthwards® process. “The main
purpose is to make our products
greener - that’s the genesis for the
whole project but, in addition, we
also want to be able to communicate the benefits
to our customers who desire greener products. We
wanted to have a robust process that would enable
us to be very comfortable with the green claims we
are bringing to the marketplace.”
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ACCELERATING THE BUSINESS
In keeping with Johnson & Johnson’s Healthy
Future 2015 sustainability goals, one of the
significant goals is to achieve 60 Earthwards®
recognized products by 2015. At the end of 2012
they are well over half way to achieving this goal
with 34 products having achieved Earthwards®
recognition, spanning all three market sectors.
Al Iannuzzi points out that “many of our
Earthwards® products sit at the top of their product
categories, proving that our approach is helping
drive our business success and address the needs
of our customers.”
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Measuring whether or not the Earthwards®
process is making a difference was always going
to be difficult. With PE’s extensive experience
with enterprise sustainability management
and product sustainability auditing, Johnson &
Johnson was able to develop metrics that allow
them to determine to what extent their efforts
are working.
Al Iannuzzi explains; “We use a metric that measures
the percentage of Earthwards® generated claims
that are actually being used to communicate with
customers. The higher this percentage the more
impact we know we are having and the more
valuable the process becomes.”
Life Cycle Thinking: Driving Product Development, Innovation & Marketing
CLIMBING UP THE SUSTAINABILITY RANKINGS
In just one year, Johnson & Johnson has been able to improve their
position on the Interbrand Best Global Green Brands ranking. With the
help of the Earthwards® process they have successfully become the
sixth best Global green brand in the world.
Al Iannuzzi sums it up, “at Johnson & Johnson, we believe human health
benefits from a healthy planet. Making our products more sustainable
through design magnifies their benefits and is simply good business.”
Johnson & Johnson Caring for the world, one person at a time... inspires and unites the people of Johnson & Johnson.
The company embraces research and science - bringing innovative ideas, products and services to advance the
health and well-being of people. Employees of the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies work with partners
in health care to touch the lives of over a billion people every day, throughout the world. Johnson & Johnson has
more than 250 operating companies in 60 countries employing approximately 129,000 people. Their worldwide
headquarters is in New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA.
PE INTERNATIONAL is one of the world’s most experienced
sustainability software, content and strategic consulting
firms. With 20 years of experience and 20 offices around
the globe, PE INTERNATIONAL helps clients understand
sustainability, improve their performance and succeed
in the marketplace. Through market leading software
solutions and consulting services, PE INTERNATIONAL has
worked with some of the world’s most respected firms to
develop the strategies, management systems, tools and
processes needed to achieve leadership in sustainability.
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Senior Director, Strategy & Business Development
Founder, PSRT and Five Winds Strategic Consulting
PE INTERNATIONAL, Inc
2260 Baseline Road, Suite 102
Boulder, CO 80302
Keith Sutter
Sr. Product Director
Sustainable Brand Marketing
Environment Health Safety and Sustainability
Johnson & Johnson
410 George Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901