Cristine Schulz, Associate Director of Sustainability at Kimberly-Clark Professional, has spent more than two decades in sustainability and process engineering roles at the company, including stints as global sustainability manager and sustainability business partner before her current role. E+E Leader asked her to walk through the accounting behind Thrive's diversion numbers, the program's dependence on cement manufacturing as its sole current end market, and what the company has learned about its own products by tracking what happens to them after use.
End-of-Life Strategy
Thrive uses plastic as an alternative fuel rather than recycling it into new products. Why was energy recovery selected over material-to-material recycling, and what technical or economic barriers prevent a higher-value pathway?
Schulz: Material-to-material recycling remains an important part of the broader circularity conversation, but not every used product or material stream can be effectively recycled into new products today. Products like dispensers are made from mixed or engineered materials and, once they have been used, can be difficult to collect, sort, and process into a consistent feedstock for new products.
With Thrive, we wanted to create a practical pathway for materials that otherwise would have gone to landfill. Converting qualified materials into alternative fuel allows them to displace fossil fuels used in cement manufacturing, and the resulting ash can be incorporated into construction materials. Qualified products are eligible for landfill diversion so long as, after use, they are non-hazardous as classified by federal, state, and local regulations.
Long-Term Direction
Is energy recovery Thrive's intended long-term solution, or an interim step while Kimberly-Clark develops reusable or genuinely recyclable products?
Schulz: We don't see Thrive as an either-or proposition. We need solutions for the products and materials that exist today while continuing to innovate for what comes next. Our long-term ambition is to reduce the environmental impact of our products across their lifecycle, which includes looking upstream at product and material design as well as downstream at what happens after use.
Kimberly-Clark has a broader goal of reducing its plastics footprint by 50% by 2030 from a 2019 baseline, including reducing new fossil-fuel-based plastics and increasing compatibility with recyclable, reusable, and other circular systems, and is exploring circular solutions for post-industrial and post-consumer waste. Thrive gives customers a practical option today while we continue working toward solutions that can keep materials at their highest possible value for longer.
Thrive itself is also evolving. What began with dispenser diversion has expanded to include qualifying wipes and skin care cassettes, which gives us more insight into different waste streams and where additional solutions may be needed.
Measurement Boundary
The program has reportedly diverted more than 175,000 pounds of plastic. Does that represent material collected, material accepted for processing or material ultimately used as fuel? How much material was rejected?
Schulz: We want to be very precise about what we mean by diversion. The pounds reported through Thrive represent qualifying material that has been collected and processed through the program for landfill diversion, rather than simply material that was identified as potentially recyclable.
For the dispenser program specifically, customers receive a certificate confirming the weight diverted after the dispensers have been received and processed. That distinction matters because we are not counting material simply because it entered the collection process.
The program includes several steps, from collection and shipping through processing into alternative fuel. Customers can log into our platform and obtain their diversion performance at any given point, requested as needed.
Lifecycle Impact
Kimberly-Clark says the alternative fuel can reduce fossil-fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions. Has that claim been supported by an independently reviewed lifecycle assessment covering transportation, processing and combustion?
Schulz: We take environmental claims seriously and believe they need to be grounded in data and an appropriate lifecycle perspective. The environmental benefit of alternative fuel comes from its ability to offset conventional fossil fuels used in cement manufacturing, and the Thrive process also provides a pathway for the residual ash to be incorporated into construction materials. The alternative engineered fuel reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 54% compared to coal, which is the leading energy source for the cement industry in the US, based on a third-party life cycle assessment of a waste stream replacing coal as alternative fuel in a cement kiln instead of being landfilled.
Traceability
The site describes Thrive as fully traceable. Can customers trace their material through a named processor to a specific cement facility, and is that chain of custody independently verified?
Schulz: Traceability is a key part of what makes Thrive different from simply telling a customer that their waste was diverted. Customers receive documentation tied to their program activity, including shipping documentation and diversion performance reporting.
The material moves through a designated sustainability partner, where qualifying products are sorted, shredded, and converted into alternative fuel before being used in cement manufacturing. Any residual ash is given a new purpose as cement for building and construction materials.
Processing locations are assigned based on the customer's geography, which helps reduce transportation distance. Kimberly-Clark Professional publicly identifies approved processing locations for the dispenser program to give customers visibility into where materials enter the processing stream.
Customer Reporting
What information appears in the customer's final report? Does it distinguish energy recovery from recycling and include transportation and combustion emissions, or does it report only pounds diverted from landfill?
Schulz: Reporting is an important part of Thrive because customers need to be able to document their progress, not simply participate in the program. For dispenser changeouts, customers receive a certificate confirming the weight of material diverted from landfill after it has been received and processed, reported in pounds or tons.
For ongoing Thrive programs, customers have access to a broader reporting platform that includes site-level information, monthly and annual diversion performance by product type, and shipping documentation. That gives sustainability and facility teams a record they can use for internal reporting, audit readiness, and tracking progress over time.
Since Thrive is a landfill-diversion program, material converted into alternative engineered fuel is reported as landfill diversion, not recycling.
Replacement Incentives
Because the dispenser program accompanies the installation of new Kimberly-Clark dispensers, how do you ensure it does not encourage customers to replace functioning equipment before the end of their useful life?
Schulz: Thrive is designed to address the practical challenge customers face disposing of dispensers when they already have a legitimate reason to upgrade their restroom equipment. We recognized that customers could have sustainability goals but still face a very practical question about how to responsibly manage the old equipment. Thrive creates a pathway for qualifying dispensers that would otherwise potentially become waste when a customer makes an operational or facility decision to upgrade.
The sustainability benefit has to be considered alongside the useful life of the equipment and the customer's actual operational needs. We don't want landfill diversion to become a reason to create unnecessary waste.
Unexpected Finding
What has Thrive taught Kimberly-Clark that it did not want to learn? Has the waste data exposed a product, material choice or business practice that the company now believes must change?
Schulz: One of the most valuable things about programs like Thrive is that they give us a much clearer view of what happens to products after they leave our hands. The biggest lesson is that end of life cannot be treated as a separate sustainability issue. It has to be considered much earlier, when we're making decisions about product design, materials, and how products are used. We don't want to simply become better at managing waste. We want to keep asking why the waste exists in the first place and what we can change upstream.
That's consistent with Kimberly-Clark's broader focus on reducing its plastics footprint and exploring circular solutions for post-consumer waste. As Thrive expands across different types of products, the data gives us another feedback loop. It can help us better understand which materials are hardest to manage at end of life and where design, infrastructure, or partnerships need to evolve.
Pathway Resilience
What happens if cement producers eventually stop accepting plastic-derived fuels? Does Thrive have a second viable destination for the material, or is the program dependent on continued demand from one industry?
Schulz: Any responsible waste-diversion program has to think beyond a single end market. Thrive is built around qualified materials being processed into an alternative fuel, and today cement manufacturing provides an important end use because the fuel can displace conventional fossil fuels in that process.
We're continuing to evaluate technologies and pathways that can create additional options for hard-to-manage materials. We don't view today's solution as a reason to stop innovating. The objective is to continue expanding the number of viable pathways so that we're not dependent on a single solution forever.
That also aligns with Kimberly-Clark's broader circularity strategy, which isn't built around one end-of-life pathway. It includes material reduction, renewable and recycled alternatives, reusable products, collection of post-consumer waste, and development of new circular systems and end-of-life solutions.
Definition of Success
Five years from now, what would represent greater success: diverting millions of pounds through cement kilns or redesigning Kimberly-Clark products so this waste stream no longer exists?
Schulz: Ultimately, success is designing the waste out of the system. If five years from now we're diverting significantly more material through Thrive, that's meaningful, because it means less material is going to landfill today. But the bigger ambition is to continue moving upstream by designing products and systems that use fewer resources, incorporate more circular materials, and create better options at the end of their useful life.
That's why I don't see Thrive as the finish line. It's one part of a larger journey. We need solutions for today's waste while continuing to work toward a future where there is less waste to manage in the first place. The best outcome is using what we learn from processing a growing waste stream to help make it smaller over time.
This Q&A was conducted with Kimberly-Clark Professional as part of the Industry Voices series. Kimberly-Clark Professional is a commercial vendor, and this interview reflects the company's own account of its Thrive program. Answers are lightly edited for length and clarity and were not independently verified by E+E Leader.
