SustainabilityOnline recently published its inaugural ‘Ambition Into Action’ report, featuring interviews with senior leaders about how they are turning sustainability vision into business reality at the mid-point of the decade.
Virginie Helias has held the role of Chief Sustainability Officer at Procter & Gamble since 2019. She joined P&G in 1988 and has built a career across brand management, innovation, and sustainability functions, having been based in France, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the United States. In her role, she is responsible for defining the consumer goods giant’s sustainability strategy and embedding it across the businesses and regions in which the group operates.
How has P&G moved from ‘ambition to action’ in terms of turning sustainability into a core value driver – in other words, how have you made sustainability ‘good for business’?
From the day I pitched for the CSO role 15 years ago, I have always aimed to make sustainability an integral part of how we innovate, build our brands, and run our business. It was built in, not bolted on. We have proven that when done well, sustainability can not only protect but also drive value creation.
As we say, ‘Sustainability without performance is a waste of time, and performance without sustainability is just a matter of time’. When executed effectively, they reinforce each other.
As an example, cold water performance in detergent is the single biggest driver of carbon reduction and also serves as a torture test for superior performance – it reduces the consumer footprint when using our products and increases their delight. Our entire activity system is designed to achieve the ‘Trifecta’ of Performance, Sustainability, and Value Creation.
We’re now at the mid point of the decade. What do you see as the single biggest barrier for businesses in moving from ambition to measurable action – and how can it be overcome?
Hitting the Trifecta, as mentioned above, is no small feat. Most of the low-carbon or circular solutions that exist are at the beginning of the curve and present affordability challenges while offering parity performance, which limits our ability to drive all three vectors of the Trifecta. To overcome this barrier, we need radical creativity, unprecedented collaboration, and collective courage.
We have several examples that illustrate this, such as partnering with our large chemical suppliers to decarbonise our raw materials right at the source, investing in our supply chain to address supply gaps, and aligning emerging demand with credible measurement rules to drive scale in decarbonisation technologies.
Learn more about P&G’s sustainability initiatives at https://us.pg.com/environmental-sustainability/
