(Credit: Pixabay)Tide aims to reduce water use at plants by 40% (by 2030 vs. 2010 baseline), while evolving products to use less water in both formula and wash cycle. In 2020, Tide reduced absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in its direct manufacturing by more than 75% annually versus a decade ago and has set a new goal to cut GHG emissions in half at its direct manufacturing plants by 2030.
Tide is also launching a significant educational campaign in spring 2021 to convince North American consumers to shift to cold water washing. The goal for three out of four loads of laundry in the United States and Canada to be washed in cold instead of hot by 2030 has the potential to reduce GHG emissions by 4.25 million metric tons (MT), according to Tide. Over the decade (2020-2030), the total impact of this action would be a cumulative 27 million MT reduction in CO2.
Today, Tide manufacturing plants use 100% renewable electricity. Tide will advance its GHG emissions reduction goal through a pilot development project with Opus12, a Silicon Valley start-up at the forefront of carbon transformation, to explore the company’s carbon capture and utilization technology to incorporate CO2 Made ingredients in the manufacturing of Tide.
With over two-thirds of all GHG emissions in the laundry lifecycle resulting from the consumer use phase, Tide will zero in on an ambitious long-term mission to make cold water washing the industry standard in the US and Canada, compared to today’s baseline, which sees on average less than half of laundry loads washed on cold. Switching from hot to cold water reduces energy use in the wash phase by up to 90%.
Behavior change at this scale will require significant investment, as well as collaboration across the industry. To advance that goal, Tide will launch a “turn to cold water” consumer education campaign in the coming weeks.
