In an exclusive interview with edie, RB’s director of global sustainability, environment, health and safety Dave Challis says that both breakthrough innovation and incremental innovation are vital for economic and environmental improvement.

Challis also highlighted the importance of a well-designed sustainability programme and said that the company’s new strategy, launched last year, will help Reckitt Benckiser, the global health and hygiene consumer products company, improve on its environmental credentials as well as revenue growth.

“One of our new goals is to increase the net revenue from more sustainable products to 1/3 by 2020. It’s a massive goal and the sustainability team is working closely with our finance colleagues to put the measurement system in place.

“And we’re working with our product development teams to make sure we have a pipeline full of more sustainable products”.

Another major area the company is focusing on in its new strategy is water consumption. Last month, Reckitt Benckiser announced that for the first time it had carried out research to identify its water footprint and how to reduce the company’s water impact.

The research, carried out last year, has identified where the company needs to concentrate its efforts on water consumption and how to measure progress towards its target of reducing consumption by 1/3 by 2020.

Challis told edie: “Our water impact study showed us that there are key areas we have an opportunity to address -like the water used for handwashing in India. So we will use this information, combined with our new Sustainable Innovation Calculator, to develop more sustainable products.”

Read the full interview ‘In conversation with Reckitt Benckiser’s Dave Challis’

Leigh Stringer

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