Note 8: Sustainable solutions and customer value
Positivity was the driving force behind one of our 2020 “Let’s Colour” projects, which helped to spread cheer in homes across Indonesia. We teamed up with a local arts community in Bandung, West Java, to create a series of colorful murals as part of the nation’s 75th Independence Day anniversary celebrations. The project was also an opportunity for our Dulux brand to raise people’s spirits and spread a message of hope.
Sustainable Product Portfolio Assessment
Our sustainable solutions add value for our customers. They often show faster growth rates and command higher margins than more traditional products. We identify the value we bring to customers in terms of sustainability by using our Sustainable Product Portfolio Assessment (SPPA) framework in our portfolio management.
In 2020, we combined our approach to sustainable solutions and our priority substance program into SPPA. This allows us to cover both the sustainability advantages and the legislative concerns on substances in our portfolio management.
We’ve split our portfolio into three categories, as shown in the Paint section.
We now have a holistic view of the sustainability characteristics of our product portfolio. Together with our customer-focused product stewardship process, it enables value-selling strategies tailored to specific customer needs. It means we can take a harmonized approach in our portfolio management and have created a unique baseline for our future portfolio ambitions.
Product stewardship
Product stewardship is our approach to ensuring that product safety and its sustainability aspects are considered throughout the value chain – from raw material extraction, R&D, manufacturing, transport, marketing and application, all the way through to end-of-life. We aim to deliver value to ourselves and our customers by not only ensuring regulatory compliance in every region where we operate, but also by committing to continually develop safer and more sustainable solutions for the market, while staying ahead of legislation through our proactive approach.
We use our Product Stewardship Continuous Improvement Tool (PSCIT) to drive continuous improvement in product stewardship. Specific improvements in 2020 are particularly noticeable in the marketing teams where the SPPA process has been introduced and clear actions have been taken for the management of critical substances.
Priority substance management
Our industry-leading and multi-award-winning Priority Substance Program continues to conduct reviews as the regulatory status of substances change. Processes are also in place to prevent the introduction of hazardous substances in our businesses. Creating a direct link between the program and business processes ensures that substances are identified and actions are managed within the business’ product portfolio in a timely and appropriate manner.
Sustainable solutions and value for the customer
We work closely with customers to deliver products and solutions that help their businesses to become more sustainable, while delivering economic value to all parties in the value chain. By focusing on the benefits we can offer, we continue to have a major influence on the growing acceptance of more sustainable solutions in our various markets.
We’ve grouped the sustainability benefits for our customers into six People. Planet. Paint. chapters that we use in our SPPA framework to define our sustainable solutions.
Research and development.