S. C. Johnson & Son, Inc., was awarded the Ron Brown Award for Corporate Leadership today from Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez at a White House ceremony. The honor is the only Presidential Award to recognize companies for outstanding achievements in employee and community relations. SC Johnson is being recognized for the accomplishments of its Greenlist(TM) Program. In 2001, SC Johnson devised the environmental classification system Greenlist(TM) to transform the way the company measures, tracks and continues to advance its products to further the company’s longstanding commitment to environmentally responsible products. Through Greenlist(TM), SC Johnson continues to lead the way with responsible raw material choices.
SC Johnson was awarded along with the Bayer Corporation and Johnson & Johnson.
"Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, and SC Johnson are all very deserving of this award," Gutierrez said. "These companies are helping the future leaders of our country develop the skills and talents necessary to compete and succeed in the 21st century. With their leadership, we will continue to create and sustain high paying green jobs to maintain a prosperous economy, a safe environment, and successful U.S. businesses."
For more than a century, as a family-owned and -managed company, SC Johnson has been guided by the belief that the product decisions made today must be made for the next generation — not the next quarter.
"On behalf of everyone at SC Johnson, we are honored to receive the Ron Brown Award," said Fisk Johnson, Chairman and CEO of SC Johnson. "This recognition of our Greenlist(TM) process is testament to SC Johnson’s ongoing commitment to doing what is right for the environment. If businesses work to make responsible raw material choices we can have a tremendous impact in protecting resources and the planet for future generations."
Greenlist(TM) is a reflection of SC Johnson’s steadfast commitment to the environment and spirit of innovation. From being a pioneer in the introduction of water-based aerosols in 1955 to its leadership as the first company to remove chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) from all aerosol products three years ahead of the 1978 U.S. mandate, Greenlist(TM) is the company’s most recent voluntary innovation to safeguard our shared environment. Greenlist(TM) goes beyond regulatory requirements to meet SC Johnson’s own high standards for product formulation.
As a patented system, Greenlist(TM) (US Patent No. 6,973,362) formalizes the classification of raw materials used in SC Johnson’s products according to their impact on the environment and human health. To that end, Greenlist(TM) has helped SC Johnson continue to phase out certain raw materials, and use more materials considered to be environmentally "better" and "best." The result is a process that gives SC Johnson scientists around the globe ready access to a rating of ingredients in any new product or reformulation and enables them to continuously improve the environmental profile of the company’s products.
In just one example of the positive impact of the Greenlist process, SC Johnson used Greenlist(TM) to reformulate Windex, the leading glass cleaner in the market. The company was able to replace a 0 rated solvent with a 3 rated solvent and unique cleaning ingredient system. This helped reduce volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the Windex formula to less than four percent. At the same time, the cleaning power of Windex was boosted by 30 percent.
By sharing its Greenlist(TM) process with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Environment Canada, the Chinese EPA, the U.K.’s Forum for the Future, the World Business Council on Sustainable Development, industry associations, universities, corporations and others, the company has increased its impact. In addition, the company has partnered with suppliers to use insights from Greenlist(TM) to develop ingredients that are more environmentally sustainable.
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