Can you talk about you or your company’s efforts relating to renewability, sustainability or other environmentally- friendly activities?

Reckitt is a multinational FMCG company that manufactures nutrition, health and hygiene products. Our corporate purpose is to protect and nurture in the relentless pursuit of a cleaner, healthier world – with the goal of making access to hygiene, wellness and nourishment products a right and not a privilege.

Sustainability is central to Reckitt’s purpose and runs through everything that we do. Globally, we reduced our greenhouse gas emissions (scope 1 and 2) by 66% since 2015. Electricity used across our eight manufacturing sites in the ASEAN region is 100% renewable and all manufacturing sites have achieved zero waste to landfill. Reckitt’s ambition is to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040.

To ensure our business growth is fundamentally linked to positive impact, each of our major brands have a purpose centred around an environmental, social or health agenda. We are also at the forefront of discussions around the health impact of climate change and calls to make climate change a central component of public health strategy.

Why are in-house lawyers well-placed to drive change in their organisations?

Consumption and demand are at the core of all environmental issues. While companies like Reckitt can reduce its own manufacturing footprint, a significant proportion of our products’ full lifecycle footprint comes from consumer behaviour. We need to encourage consumers to choose more sustainable products and lifestyles to realise the benefits of our sustainability initiatives.

Laws and regulations are the most effective drivers of consumer behaviour. In-house lawyers serve as intermediaries between the business and applicable regulations. Hence, they are best placed to recognise opportunities new legislation provides to drive demand for more sustainable products and solutions.

It can be difficult to truly measure a company’s track record and accomplishments in terms of their environmentally friendly behaviour. What do you think has, until now, been mostly missed when discussing how green a company is?

I believe there are three key issues that go beyond the simple measurement of how green a company is.

Firstly, a company’s environmental impact is not limited to its own activities. Consumer use is often the largest activity and the hardest to tackle. Promoting sustainable consumer demand and preference is a critical element in minimising not just full lifecycle environmental footprint, but also a consumer’s total consumer footprint. No matter how sustainable we make our products, if consumers choose less sustainable products from a competitor, the work we put in reducing our environmental footprint goes to waste.

Secondly, absolute emission levels should not be the only measure of how green a company is, nor should it be the basis of regulation. We need to encourage incremental improvements in the operations of all companies to drive sustainable behaviour.

Thirdly, not all emissions are equal. In assessing how green a company is, we should consider the social value of the activity that creates the emission. Should we treat the emissions from a hospital the same way we treat emissions from a factory producing discretionary items? During the Covid-19 pandemic, countries around the world learned to differentiate essential industries and activities from those which were not. While we all need to play a part in improving sustainability outcomes, there is a greater opportunity to address emissions from discretionary items with lower social value.