Colgate-Palmolive Company is one of the latest global beauty-personal care behemoths to join the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy initiative, reflecting the company’s commitment to 100% recyclability of packaging across all its product categories and its target to achieve 25% recycled content in all plastic packaging by 2025.
 
The company aims to accelerate their progress in part through scalable improvement in the capacity and quality of recycled material available for its packaging in the years ahead. Additionally, Colgate-Palmolive says they will continue to innovate “in order to reduce and eliminate problematic and unnecessary plastic packaging.” Recent successes include a reengineered fabric softener sachet in Latin America and redesigned toothpaste packaging in China that they say, together, save more than 50 tons of plastic annually. Colgate-Palmolive says it has also made “significant progress in advancing reduction of problematic plastics, with 98% of its packaging now PVC-free and a goal of 100% by 2020.”
 
Colgate-Palmolive’s 2017 Sustainability Report, titled “Building a Future to Smile About,” provides information on Colgate-Palmolive’s long-standing commitments, details ongoing progress, and highlights the latest achievements in sustainability and corporate social responsibility. Colgate-Palmolive recognizes the need to bring the valuable materials distributed via consumer packaging back into the supply chain to help create a circular economy that enables people and our environment to thrive.
 
“We are committed to reducing our use of plastic in our packaging, using more recycled plastic, and increasing the recyclability of our plastic packaging,” said Ian Cook, chairman, president and chief executive officer. “We’re proud to join this Ellen MacArthur Foundation initiative, an important part of our strategy to help us achieve our goals and keep building a future to smile about.”