Colgate-Palmolive

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Founded as a small soap and candle business in 1806, the consumer products company now boasts a portfolio of well-known household and personal care brands.

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Colgate-Palmolive's diverse portfolio of home, personal, and oral care brands—which includes names like Ajax, Irish Spring, and Speedstick—are sold in more than 200 countries and territories.

As we face unprecedented collective challenges, cooperation has become a business superpower.

27.CTW20.Colgate-Palmolive2

Toothpaste tubes have long frustrated green-minded consumers. The hybrid composition that makes such tubes squeezable—a mixture of laminated plastic and aluminum—also makes it impracticable to recycle most of the 20 billion tubes that consumers discard each year.<br />
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Colgate-Palmolive, which claims 41% of the global toothpaste market, poured five years of research into this puzzle, and in 2019, the effort paid off. Colgate’s new recyclable tube is made from high-density polyethylene (HDPE), the recyclable plastic found in shampoo containers and milk jugs. (A key phase of the research: grinding down the tube prototypes and recycling them as new bottles.) This year, Colgate introduced the tubes in multiple brands and it will soon use them for Optic White, which alone accounts for 8.5% of U.S. toothpaste sales. The company aims to make 100% of its packaging recyclable by 2025. In the meantime, it’s sharing the HDPE design on an open-source basis, so others can adopt it too.

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Colgate-Palmolive, founded in 1806, manufactures and sells hygiene products in the U.S. and internationally. Its wide variety of offerings range from toothpaste and toothbrushes to hand soaps, shampoos, and household cleaners. Popular brands include Palmolive, Tom’s of Maine, Irish Spring, Softsoap, Speed Stick, and Fabuloso. It’s also the parent company of Hill’s Pet Nutrition, which sells its products through pet supply retailers and veterinary clinics.

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Colgate-Palmolive (CL): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Colgate-Palmolive | Fortune

Colgate-Palmolive (CL): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings | Fortune

Prabha Parameswaran

We need to close the oral health care gap to improve the world’s well-being

/2024/07/03/closing-oral-health-care-gap-will-improve-world-well-being/

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E-commerce is witnessing the Amazon-ification of Shein, as the fast-fashion behemoth woos skincare and toy brands

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Sheryl Estrada

Is ‘ESG’ over? GE, Walmart, and Colgate-Palmolive execs on when they do and don’t still use the term

/2023/09/14/esg-term-walmart-colgate-palmolive-ge-execs/

Marissa McGowan, Chief Sustainability Officer, L’Oreal NA Paul Moinester, Founder, Executive Director, Topo Finance Ann Tracy, Chief Sustainability Officer, Colgate-Palmolive Moderator: Molly Wood, Founder and CEO, Molly Wood Media; Co-chair, Fortune Impact Initiative

Impact Initiative 2024: Solutions And Strategies For Solving Scope 3 Emissions

Photography by Rebecca Greenfield/Fortune

Conferences

Marissa McGowan, Chief Sustainability Officer, L’Oreal NA Paul Moinester, Founder, Executive Director, Topo Finance Ann Tracy, Chief Sustainability Officer, Colgate-Palmolive, Molly Wood, Founder and CEO, Molly Wood Media

Marissa McGowan, L’Oreal NA, Paul Moinester, Topo Finance,Ann Tracy, Colgate-Palmolive, Molly Wood, Molly Wood Media

All right, I am super excited about this conversation because I think we're gonna go in some unexpected directions and we're gonna try to be tactical because I think there is this sense whenever we talk about Scope Three that everyone goes. Yep, it's really hard and we still haven't figured it out yet. So let's try to like make some strides toward figuring it out. Um I'm gonna jump right in with a, a conversation we have already been having with apologies about making sure that you understand fundamentally what your scope is. This is a question of nuance, focus and new strategies. So ann talk about identifying and deciding what to focus on when you're looking at Scope three. Yeah. Um Sure. Thank you and thank you for having me here. Um So Scope Three starts by breaking it down to its lowest level granular across your whole value chain and Colgate you probably know us from our, our oral care products. But also we have personal care, home care and pet care products globally around the world. We sell in 200 coun countries. So we have a pretty broad footprint. Um And, and you know, we've been measuring our reduction to greenhouse gas emissions as well as water, um energy and so forth for over 20 years. So we have a baseline and with that baseline, we've been doing a lot of work to break down scope 12 and three. So our footprint and we're, you know, we're global multinational like l'oreal. Um Our value chain is based on our products is 15% upstream. So that's largely our purchase goods and services. It's the materials, it's the packaging that we buy to make our products and then 5% our own operations. So our factories, um some of our logistics in our own operations and then 80% is when the consumer takes our product home and uses it. So every one of those 15, 5 and 80 we have broken that down to very granular level. So that took a lot of work. So that's step one is understanding your scope three at a detailed level. Um So if we wanna talk tactics um to, to we're focused right now very much on that upstream piece that 15%. And over the last several years, we have really grown and evolved our partnership with our procurement team. So their procurement team owns this, I mean, they're all over it. They, in fact, over those two years, they've formed a team within procurement called the Sustainability Procurement team. It's about five people that are focused on our commodities that are focused on our packaging um and working with suppliers on scope three on reducing their emissions. And it's really interesting because we've broken those suppliers down the top, the top, I think 200 make up 80 we, we use over 20,000 suppliers globally, but the top 200 make up 85 or 80 to 85 the 8020 rule. So tactics 8020 rule that works make up most. So we're focused on that 1st 200 suppliers. And it's very interesting because they really range in maturity in terms of where they are on their journey. So that's I'll leave it there, but that's where we're focused procurement as a partner is really critical and up focus that focus on an upstream, right? Super Yeah, interesting. And then Marissa, you, I think have some good examples about focusing on the downstream and taking some kind of again, like some unexpected strategies. Well, thank you for listening to us, talk about Scope three. Similarly, we didn't wanna repeat ourselves. So I thought I would talk a little bit about downstream but just to level set for the audience. Um I am the head of North America for sustainability. North America represents about 22% of l'oreal's footprint of that in North America. About 50% is our packaging of raw materials. And then the next 30% is actually how we bring our goods to market. So that's digital marketing point of sale and promotional materials and our owned stores. So it's, it's actually interesting. We, we had our initial S BT I in 2017 and this restated one showed us just what a huge part of our footprint actually bringing the mat, the, the products to market represents. So that's what I mean, that's more than the percent of our logistics and transportation or even the 4% of our business travel. So even just a level set, that so much of what we do is really how we bring our goods to market. So that was one of the big sort of learnings in this last iteration um of our SVT I I would say um the tactical example I was gonna give of working on our digital advertising. So even just identifying who we are as a company, yes, we sell amazing products that hopefully you're all using. Um But we also are the fourth largest advertiser in the world. So we're seeing that come through in the footprint. So we started working on digital media and the campaigns that we do with probably some of our retail tail and media partners who may be in this room. And what we saw was very quickly, there was actually low hanging fruit. So we just did a mess with Lancome tiktok campaign that if you haven't seen, please check it out. Um But we used a um a tool to let us actually decrease our emissions 41% versus a campaign of the same size and quality in the past. And that was things like shrinking file sizes, making fewer takes, transmitting fewer takes over to our partners who are actually in this case, Tik Tok putting it on. Um And we just didn't even realize that we, we could do all that. So I think scope three can be seen as a monolith. It's actually, you know, like Ann said, breaking it down and then looking at areas of opportunity to bring business transformation to new groups in this case, or CD Mo or our chief digital marketing office and also then engage new partners like Tik Tok and some of our um advertising partners. You know, before I come to Paul, actually, I wanna follow up on this question of BT I and how it changes and helps you evolve your scope three strategy and realization. So can I come back to Anne on that? And then maybe you can talk a little bit more about that? Yeah. And we, and we first we got our net, we so we have a target to be net zero carbon by 2040 to get S BT I approval for that target and your plans to get there, you if they, you work with them at science based, it requires you to have interim targets. And we first got that approval in I think it was 2022 and we were the first multinational global consumer goods company to receive that approval. And since then, you know, other companies are joining, which is great. Um It's not easy and Marissa can tell you it's, it was very difficult, a long slog of a year of back and forth with them. Um But one thing I wanted to add to what Marissa said was the importance of tools, digital tools and investing in those tools. So she mentioned, I think it was called the Impact Plus Impact Plus. So for upstream, we are in the process of implementing a tool called watershed um which will help us to better track all of that data coming from the suppliers. It's i it's immense, it's massive and we use, we have been doing this very manually and that's untenable. We can't do that, barely do it for 200 suppliers, let alone 20,000 suppliers. And then another tool we're putting in place is called M 2030 which is a different platform that helps bring uh companies and suppliers together to work jointly on things like renewable energy projects and things like that. So the tools in the platform and the digital piece are really critical. Yeah. Um And then of course, keeping with our theme of sort of evolving learnings, there are things that are hiding in your backyard that you did not know about and that is where Paul comes in. Um talk about what you're doing with Topo Finance and the like magical scope three reduction that you could literally implement almost overnight. Yeah. Um thanks. And um yeah, so uh TOBA Finance is a nonprofit organization. Um We essentially are pioneering the field of climate align Treasury management. Um So that's a very wonky term but to break that down and don't call it that. Yeah, I know, I know. Terrible framing, terrible framing. But uh so um you know, no matter if you're an individual or organization or a multinational company, everybody, you know, 95% of Americans have banks, all companies have huge banking partnerships. And essentially corporate treasury is kind of always sat outside the bounds of your climate companies, your company's climate objectives and goals. But what we sort of started looking into and what we found was that there's actually a huge emissions lever, excuse me, a huge source of emissions, but also a huge climate lever. That is the thing that's hiding right in your backyard. And so we developed some pioneering data and methodology that basically allowed us to figure out that for many companies, we spend a lot of time working in the tech sector. So companies like Microsoft Apple etc their banking and investing is actually generating more emissions than everything else they're doing combined scope 12 and three. And the reason why is because for those companies and for a lot of companies that have a lot of money sitting in the bank, that money doesn't just sit there accruing interest, banks, take your deposits and then they lend it out across the economy and the emissions generated by that is enormous. So banks, they're lending is generating 700 times more emissions than everything else they're doing combined. And about 20% of all the money that's deposited in large US banks when, when the Wall Street banks lend that out, that's flowing to the world's most carbon intensive sectors and generating massive emissions. And so what we found is that not only is this a huge source of emissions, but it's also this incredible climate lever because for companies like l'oreal and Colgate, who are working really aggressively to reduce all their emissions. So much of your work is outside of your control. But because of the invisible hand that the financial sector plays flowing money across the economy, it's actually the best tool possible that companies have is actually to reach their scope three emissions is to go and talk to their banks and get their banks and the other assets that they have under management to be flowing towards climate solutions rather towards accelerating all of the things that are happening right now in terms of where money is flowing and the impact it's having on the climate. And does it also include potentially just using different banks? I mean, there's maybe only so much conversation you can have with your bank about how to use your corporate cash, I would imagine. Yeah, I mean, so um I'm to still a term from Phil earlier, banking is boring af until you actually realize the impact that it has. And so I am a nerd. I've come into the banking world from the world of politics. But if you go and you look at a company's 10-K, what you're actually, which is their financial report. What you actually see is a road map to decarbonisation of the global economy because it's not just the money that sitting in cash, but it's everything else, it's the municipal bonds. And so how can you be using green municipal bonds that are going towards climate resilience and climate adaptation in a town like Atlanta? How do you, we need to decarbonize the housing stock companies have millions and billions of dollars at times in mortgage backed securities. How do we use those as a vehicle for decarbonizing the housing stock and you know, corporate debt securities, etc, all of these things are these potential vehicles. And so there's this really fascinating paradigm which is we spend all this, I'm thinking about, you know, climate technologies that we need to be adapting. How can we change things culturally, but really, it's actually the wiring in the financial system that needs the most innovation because we need to move over $200 trillion into climate solutions over the next 30 years. And the best way to do that is to use the money that we all have. There's over $7 trillion in corporate cash right now in this country and it's generating, you know, indirectly about what represents about 20% of all emissions in the US. And so, so if you can, if companies can step up and start engaging with their banks and start working with their banks to really drive innovation, not just in terms of where that lending is going to, but also how we're viewing all these different multiple financial products. It really is this like boring but very fascinating way to rewire the world to drive climate transformation. I mean, honestly, aren't all the best solutions like kind of the boring hardware. Um Sorry, except fusion, which is super sexy. Um This raises this question for me about, you know, as we're talking about breaking these problems into their component parts and engaging with different parts of the company, right? Like you wouldn't have necessarily thought, oh, I have to engage with my art department on smaller file sizes. Um Now I have to talk to the CFO S office more than I ever did. How do you when you hear this? Like, how does it imagine I'll start with you. Um How do you imagine reengaging with different parts of the company to have different conversations to uncover all of these levers potentially? Um Well, I I love the opportunity, I think as a practitioner and the team leader, you always have to be conscious that when you're moving into a new area so it could be engaging our finance teams, which I know in Ann's case you have a great relationship. We do too. Um, but maybe not on this conversation and it may not involve Treasury or, um, we may historically work more with the controllers than the treasurers or. Um, so just being conscious that you're gonna have to start the conversation from the beginning, uh, probably it's not the same conversation you had a few years ago when you started engaging other parts of your business, but it is starting over and I think I see it with my teams where they get frustrated that they're having the same conversations. But I say, but you're reaching broader audiences and new audiences. And as a result, we need to understand their aspect of the business, their challenges, their needs so that we can cope create solutions to do things like, you know, uh decrease emissions and file sizes and they love it too because it's actually less work for them rather than 100 and 50 renderings of something you can do maybe 75 right? So there are a lot of opportunities. I I think you mentioned earlier, Molly, this idea of actually seeing scope three as a window into something. So having set the first S BT I in 27 and then our revised S BT I being validated in 2024 I think the most interesting thing was actually seeing the shifts in the market. So if you look at our footprint it shows that digital media is significant in a way that it wasn't, you know, seven years ago, I think on the flip side, we're seeing the increased importance of brick and mortar, which we all thought after COVID. Oh, no, we're gonna be, it's just gonna be econ. So that's not the case, right? So it's also interesting to look at as a window into who we are as a business. So we're both a producer of product and a marketer of products. And wow, let's see how the business landscape has shaped or shifted which in some cases, it really hasn't. It's still brick and mortar and in other cases, it really has in terms of reaching the consumer of digital. So I know I went off, you know, a little different from, from the question, but I think it's a, it's just a neat talk about Nerd Paul. We're on a scope through pan like this clearly excites me. We're all, we're all a bunch of happy, you're with our people. So, um so similar to Marissa, I mean, I, we in order to tackle scope 12 and three, every person in the company has a role to play everyone. Um I joke that our, our strategy, I'm the master of none, keeper of all because I have to, I feel like I have to keep my arms around everyone. So every function and our, our understanding relationship, road map with different functions are at different stages for me and this is we're wrestling with how to best do this, but I think education is critical as a first step. Um but pleasingly just to focus more on the finance commu you know, our finance function and which includes the controller of the treasurer, the CFO himself, et cetera audit team who are now auditing ESG elements across our businesses. Um We, we have been really building that relationship. I would say our procurement team is the most mature, but finance is quickly following. Um we pleasingly, we are engaging our treasure. We are now, you know, looking into what I love what Paul, you know, we've already agreed to talk after this because it's amazing what he's kind of uncovering. As we said, we're looking into things like funds that directly impact our target. So things like the water equity fund that will help to help us with our target to reach people with fresh water. We have a target that so these are good funds. But what he's talking about goes much deeper and broader than that. So our, I have a treasurer who's very interested in that and who she and I have been jointly working on something called an impact investment framework to help guide us. And it's basically a decision tree on what we do want to invest in what we don't, how to use our cash. But again, this whole idea of engaging banks broader than that is something I'm sure she hasn't really thought of. We have a lot of cash. So how do we best put it to work? Yeah. And it's, it's a really common thing and I mean, it's, we go and we, we're actively engaged now with companies with over $600 billion in cash and investments, helping them align their banking and investing with their climate values. And almost to a company this is new and it's part of what makes it so exciting is it's this new powerful lever that you didn't know was there before. And so a lot of the work that we actually as a nonprofit is we provide a free advising and consulting services to these companies. And so if you're a company out there that wants to tackle this, please find me after the call at Paul atop of finance.org, you can email me, but we, we just plug it a little bit. Uh you know, on the stage, have to take a shot when you got it. But uh do your shot man. Um But a lot of the things that we do is really just having and setting up these initial conversations because this is new education. And so the sustainability team doesn't really understand how the Treasury team functions. The treasury team doesn't understand the sustainability side of this. And so so much of what we do is setting up those initial conversations and creating alignment around it. But also really understanding that the treasury function is foundational in all of this and that this isn't about divestment. This isn't going and yelling at your banks and saying we got to get out of fossil fuels. It's really about developing a supply chain partnership just like you do with all all your other supply chain partners and just taking that same lens of how do we add a climate lens. How do we add a social lens to our banking and investing on top of our core needs for liquidity services, etcetera. And I have to end it there. But I will note and Pablo will probably tell you later that future regulations are likely to address this topic. Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate you.

Roger Martella, Chief Sustainability Officer, General Electric Kathleen McLaughlin, Executive Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer, Walmart Inc.; President, Walmart Foundation Ann Tracy, Chief Sustainability Officer, Colgate-Palmolive Moderator: Peter Vanham, FORTUNE

Impact Initiative 2023: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Esg Resiliency

Roger Martella, General Electric Kathleen, McLaughlin, Walmart Foundation, Ann Tracy, Colgate-Palmolive Moderator: Peter Vanham, FORTUNE

Well, good morning, good morning everyone. Uh If you are feeling a little down because, you know, it's been a heavy morning. Well, I am here to wake you back up because I am in the middle of my day, caffeinated and ready for this discussion. Uh I wanna get into this, of course, we're going to talk about the ESG backlash in the next 15 minutes. But uh I want to start with you Roger. You've had also other things on your mind. I think ge I was actually wondering uh what GE do you actually work for? So it depends on the day. Um And it's a great question. So as you know, is 100 and 30 year old company founded by Thomas Edison has changed a lot over 100 and 30 years, many different businesses, many different great innovations. But one thing has always been true in those 130 years. It's been focused on innovating technology to lift up the quality of life for people all around the world. So when we talk about sustainability, that's never been more important. So today we are separating into three separate companies, our health care company very critical purpose. There has already spun off as doing quite well. And early next year, our energy businesses and our aviation businesses will also be separate. The energy businesses provide one third of the world's energy help provide one third of the world's energy will do it increasingly in a carbon neutral way. The most diversified portfolio, our aerospace business three out of four engines and also has a net zero vision. I I work for all the business like a hard choice to make then for you. And I will, I will be with energy II, I feel very passionate about our aerospace business, but I think energy um is really the, the urgency at the moment, we have to decarbonise the energy sector so that other sectors can then electrify and decarbonise. So I'll be headed in that direction to help support those. Uh we look forward to that and I think we, we all support that decarbonization drive, not just of the company, but of course, the entire economy. Nevertheless, I don't think that at least for me, you know, GE was not the first company that came to my mind when I thought about a topic as ESG. Um and that's of course, because of, you know, the whole history with Jack Welch and you know, the idea of shareholder primacy back in the day. Um where does GE, whichever of the three I suppose, where does GE stand today on ESG as such? Because we're talking about the backlash against ESG. Sure. Well, we think of sustainability. It's core to what we do. As I mentioned, Thomas Edison's goal, innovate the technology and lift up the quality of life. So all three of our businesses sustain ability is core. And when you talk about something like ESG those aren't letters, we necessarily, we don't use those silos internally. Sometimes we might engage, you never hold, we, we don't really align in that way we cover. I think the topics that are part of ESG, but we don't really use those silos internally as, as we're talking about. So what I I frequently think is going back to Jack, we, we may have the world's best sustainability goals. I'm not saying we do, but let's say we do or we have the best mission. All of that is for nothing if we're not successful as a business first. And this is really, really important. This is maybe where there's some confusion with ESG. We have to succeed first as a business and we have to be unapologetic about that. I don't mean to be provocative but like we have to return for our shareholders, our investors, our employees. And if we can do that's a G I know. Yeah, that's a G. Well, then we do that and then we align these important sustainability goals, decarbonising energy transportation to our business plans. And that's my job is to bring that alignment together. And so we see it as a mutually inclusive opportunity, not something you have, you had any backlash in your business uh on esc or sustainability. We always have backlash. And I think that's because we take a very pragmatic view. Some people will say we should be doing more and some people should be say we should be doing less. And we have very vigorous discussions with our board which is very diverse. Some want us to do more and some you know, might be taking a different view. We end up with this very pragmatic view and an example of this, I'll give you one rip from the headlines. Example, a few years ago, we make gas turbines. We think gas turbines are critical to dec carbonizing the planet. We make wind turbines, we think they are critical, we make nuclear power. We had a lot of pressure from certain stakeholders saying we want you out of the gas business, that's a fossil fuel. We looked at it very closely and we said we're going to be unapologetic here. We think we right that gas is critical to dec carbonizing places like Vietnam Bangladesh. The world has now come around largely on that view. And I think it was important for us to remain pragmatic and get to the right answer. Good for the business, good for climate change, good for sustainability, right? And I think that gets to the question in this panel, which is what is your nord star when you're dealing with headwinds like that on, for example, ease or sustainability. I want to go over to you Kathleen. You know, of course you're representing a company that cannot afford to get into a political, um, controversy you serve, I suppose all Americans. Is that true? I mean, do have stats on that. Yeah, we do. Our customer base reflects America, our associate base, our employee base reflects America and the world. We operate in multiple countries around the world. At the same time, Walmart has been, you know, sort of unlike I think GGE an explicit fan of stakeholder capitalism embraced the idea of stakeholder capitalism and, and I think its leader has been sort of one of the leaders of that movement. And of course, if you think about stakeholder capitalism, you think about ESG your function, it includes ESG is that right? So when you are now faced with this ESG backlash, how do you deal with that? Yeah. So for us, and I think this is probably true for many of us in the room, our focus is on shared value. So it's just simply recognizing that our long term business success, financial success value creation strategy um really depends on the extent to which we can address the biggest concerns that are relevant for our business, on the minds of our customers, our associates, our suppliers, our communities, policy makers and communities um and things that we think um we can actually make a difference on through our business. So you talked about, you know, you gotta get the business right first and then you can for us, the way we get the business right is by addressing the things that matter most um to those stakeholders. So, um you know, if you think about value creation models, NPV, what goes into those assumptions about your continuing revenue streams, your cost structure, your sources of advantage that future value creation model depends on the assumptions you make about. How are you governing your company? How are you handling the environmental issues? How are you handling the social issues? Um So for us, it's part and parcel and like you um the priority themes that we have identified uh don't neatly fall in silos of ees and G, you know, for us, it's four things. It's opportunity, economic opportunity that we can create for our own people through advancement through for suppliers in an equitable way. Um It's sustainability of retail and supply chain, social and environmental sustainability. It's community resilience because we operate in 10,000 communities around the world and their um livelihoods, the extent to which they're thriving. Our business depends on that and then ethics and integrity, having the highest standards as a multinational business around those things. So our strategy is to address whether it's energy transition and climate change or workforce development and advancement of hourly people through upskilling and career path. Those things are important for our business success. So it's very integrated for us. So if I get it right, you're replacing the acronym ESG with the acronym OS re opportunity, sustainability resilience. You know, we don't really use the acronym but uh either of those acronyms. But uh but yeah, it's, it's really about the fundamentals and I think, you know, um to the extent that there is backlash, it's because of um concerns that people have all across the political spectrum about the apparatus of this. What's evolved, how is it working? How is it showing up in companies? And maybe we'll get into that a little bit. Hm. Yes. Uh, let me maybe turn over to you and, uh, you know, you work for a company that I suppose has been dealing with backlash for quite a long time. Um You know, when you look at your supply chain, I'm sure you were part of the movement back in the 19 nineties and two thousands where you had uh advocacy, you know, ens ensuring that your supply chain was clean or sustainable or things like that. And then perhaps ESG was a response for you to that previous backlash. Is that right? Or, or where does g fit in your uh Yeah. And I think you're starting to hear, you're going to hear from me, a common theme that you've heard from, from everyone else. And even in some of the round tables we've been participating in that we, we tend to think of it as sustainability and social impact. We don't use the term ESG and we never have also not, we sometimes when we're interfacing with investors, that's where it comes up. But other than that internally and even when we speak externally, we don't use the acronym. So it's so it's sustainability and social impact for you. Yeah. And like Kathleen described, we have a very focused strategy on what's relevant for our business and we also believe so. But going back to your, your first point um as a global manufacturer with a footprint all over the world, yes, we've always been facing kind of resistance whether it's ingredient controversy or clean supply chain controversy or these types of things. So we've always, we've been doing this for 20 years over 20 years and whether it's addressing a responsible sources or um even we've been measuring in our factories, uh greenhouse gas emissions, waste to landfill reduction of water and energy for over 20 years. Our baseline goes back to 2002. Um So we've always felt this was important. It's a, it's the right thing to do for manufacturing for our supply chain, for operations. Um It's made us more efficient, fast forward to today. And our purpose statement is reimagining a healthier future for all people. There are pets in our planet and that is our North Star. Um And we believe, you know, all those issues we've had to manage, those are risks, all companies face risks, we face risks relevant to our, what's relevant to our business. But we also believe there's opportunities um and, and opportunities to grow the business. Do, do you not have backlash today then on your ESG work? Because you, you know, the things you mentioned that you measure they constitute ESG so you actually embrace ESG in, in what in your operations. So do you not face backlash on that politically speaking by any of your constituents? For example. Well, if you look, if, if Colgate were a personality, we're, we're kind of uh an introverted quiet company that we, we don't, we don't tend to, we try to, we actually, that's very swiss, by the way. Yeah, we steer clear. We're probably one of the few companies that don't have anybody in Washington. We don't have government affairs. You do not have any, you don't have nobody with nobody in the swamp. No. Well, you said that I didn't uh we, we'll turn to another, you'll turn to uh to another topic. Um Maybe from the audience. If you have any questions, please raise your hand and we'll bring the microphone to you. Mhm. Um And then unless there's a question from the audience, I'm going to keep on asking questions. Um So please feel free over there. You know, I have to say, II, I once had this sort of contest of who can be silent for the longest and I love that you know, I won. Is this working? Yes. So Jeremy Hanson with Hydro Struggles, I, I can't imagine a better panel for, you know, this, this discussion. I guess the question is, um you know, I think Kathleen, you mentioned you operate across 10,000 communities. So if you think about in all of your companies, you've got, you've got to manage across these many human boundaries in light of the divisiveness, you know, that we're faced with. Now, what are the skills or principles that your ceos and your board follow to do that effectively? Yeah, I I'm happy to uh to talk about that. So I mentioned um the litmus test that we apply for uh prioritizing our environmental social governance agenda. And we have, as I mentioned, four themes, standing issues in each of those based on three screens. One um is the issue relevant for our business in terms of valuation. So long term valuation. So you talked about risk and opportunity against revenue cost, you know, advantage returns, et cetera. The second though goes to your question, which is what do our stakeholders expect of us? Meaning the customers, the employees or associates, the suppliers, communities, policy makers and it's not always the same. So the listening that's required and we have many ways of of doing listening. I'm sure many people, you know, in this room, um consultations, town halls, community meetings, social media, social listening and so on. And um when new issues arise or crop up issues at the moment. That's really where the listening is most important and it, and what we have found is uncertain issues. Not everybody agrees. Um There are differences of opinion amongst our customers, differences of opinion amongst our associates. And sometimes it's tempting to kind of go out with the view that you feel good about personally. But does that reflect what people believe and how does it connect to your role as a company? And do you have license from those stakeholders to even engage on that issue? You know, a lot of people have said Walmart, thank you very much. We appreciate your opinion, but please just tell us the bananas like we don't want to know what you think about whatever the topic is. And then the third is, would our engaging in that issue, make the outcome better or worse? Because sometimes getting involved in something we actually don't have the capabilities, the assets to actually make a difference. So for us, with those screens, it's very much. All right, we're gonna take on something. What's our strategy? And we put as much effort into figuring out that business strategy on issue X, whether it's energy transition, digital citizenship, um forced labor in the tuna chain in Southeast Asia, whatever these issues are, we put as much effort into defining the strategy with those stakeholders that are involved in that system as we do any other business problem and then measuring it that way. Um It's a very sensible strategy. I saw a lot of people nodding along when you, when you mentioned those three screens, now, what it does not include at least those three screens is ethics. No, no, it does. Ethics is our fourth. Is it? Ok. So, so, you know, ethics and integrity in terms of um corporate governance for, from the human rights or human rights, you know, policy. Yeah. So that's a really that comes first and then when you've done that, that's when you Yeah, OK, I understand it's, it's a, it's a great uh approach I think and a lot, a lot of people would, would, would probably agree. As for ESG I want to ask this question to all three of you. Um Do you still use the acronym in your engagement with some stakeholders? And if so whom I I we will use it when the context is right? II I think as mentioned, sometimes the stakeholders will wanna talk specific about ESG there might be a disclosure and we say this is relevant to what some people think of as ESG again, we prefer to talk about our. So it's, it's uh reactively when reactively. OK. How about you? We use it with certain stakeholders in certain contexts. So certain investors have said to us, institutional investors, please, on your website just can you have an ESG micro site? So we know where to go. Don't call it something weird. That we don't know what that is like, we need to know where to go to get the data that we need for our own governance. So literally, if you go to our corporate website, uh pull up the page, you'll see, we have it double faced, you know, we're retailers. So we put, you know, the bananas in two locations in the store, same thing on our website. So we do have ESG as a way to organize the topics, our priority issues. And on that same page, we have our four themes of opportunity, ethics and, and so on. So um we use it where it's useful. I mean, the trouble with the term is it's become a bogeyman, it's become, it means a lot of different things to different people. Um You know, and as I said, sometimes for legitimate reasons that people should be concerned about that and then sometimes, you know, not, but uh Roger, do you have a section on your website with ESG on it or? No, we have very similar. We have a section where you can find ESG and it will then link you to the way we share our. How about you? Yeah. Um I think similar to Kathleen, you know, if you were walking down the street and ask people about ESG, I know a lot of people wouldn't recognize that, but it is more a term used by investors and even by our board, that's the stakeholder group that we would refer to it as. But like I said before, we prefer to call it sustainability, socially impact. But the website point is really important because a lot of these um surveys and reports and aggregate reports that we have no control of, but they have the chat bots out there going out and grabbing stuff. They're looking for specific terminology to get accurate data to pull on your company, like MS C I etcetera. So that's a whole another topic for another day. But yeah, it's important to acknowledge that. So that also means I have to adjust my conclusion. A couple of months ago I wrote ESG Is Dead Long Live ESNG. But now I've learned from this discussion that in fact, the ESG lives on, on the interwebs. Fantastic. I want to thank you all for uh the wonderful discussion and I look forward to hearing more of you in the coming year.

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