SC Johnson’s Progress Championing Transparency in 2016/17: An Excerpt from Our 2017 Sustainability Report

At SC Johnson, we want people to have the whole story about the products they bring into their homes. We’re committed to giving people the ingredient information they need to make the right choices for themselves and their families. 

We launched our ingredient transparency program in 2009 to give SC Johnson consumers as much information as possible about the products that they buy. As our industry evolves, we do too, and that includes bringing this information to more people each year.

Today, WhatsInsideSCJohnson.com delivers ingredient information to more than 5 billion consumers in 52 countries around the world. The information comes in 34 languages, and includes more than 5,300 products overall. 

When it comes to being transparent about what we put in our products, no land is too far and we keep extending our reach. Prior to the release of this report we shared details of the SC Johnson Greenlist™ program with leading experts in human and environmental toxicology for their independent review. 

In 2016, we became the first major consumer packaged goods company in Europe to let people know what fragrance ingredients are used in its products, in addition to providing comprehensive product ingredient information online. But we didn’t stop there. In 2017, we expanded our ingredient transparency program to the Asia Pacific region, as well.

This latest WhatsInsideSCJohnson.com expansion lets consumers in 20 Asia Pacific countries – from Australia and Brunei to Vietnam and New Zealand – explore the fragrance ingredients in more than 1,500 of our products. To make that access as easy as possible, consumers can pick from nine languages: Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Melayu, English, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Thai, traditional Chinese and Vietnamese. And, we plan to add countries across Latin America next.

We’re proud of the global expansion of our disclosure program, but it's not the first time we’ve pushed beyond industry norms. 2017 also marked the fifth anniversary of our SC Johnson Fragrance Palette, which gave consumers the opportunity to explore our fragrance ingredients by visiting WhatsInsideSCJohnson.com.

The launch of the palette in 2012 was a first step to achieving product-specific disclosure, which we achieved in 2015.

As our Chairman and CEO Fisk Johnson has said: “We want all of our ingredients to be transparent, so consumers can make their own, informed choices on what to purchase. We also want to earn the trust and confidence every day of the people that buy our products because we work hard on our ingredient choices and strive to continually improve our products.”

To create the SC Johnson Fragrance Palette, we evaluate potential fragrance components across a number of criteria. Out of roughly 3,700 individual components currently used in our industry, we exclude 2,400 because there may be a lack of basic safety information or they don’t meet a high enough standard.

As a result, we specify for our product developers that when creating a new product or updating an existing one, the fragrance has to come from our limited palette of 1,300 components.

While our goal is always simply to do what's right for the families who use our products, there's an added benefit when our actions lead to dialogue or progress in our industry, too. We're thrilled when others get on the bandwagon. In the past year, Procter & Gamble, RB and Unilever have each announced strides of their own toward greater fragrance disclosure.

“We couldn’t be more pleased that our advocacy has helped pull together our industry in a movement toward greater transparency,” said Kelly Semrau, Senior Vice President –Global Corporate Affairs, Communication and Sustainability. “Transparency is something  we’re incredibly passionate about.” 

And when you’re passionate about an idea, you like to see it flourish. The more that we are transparent – our company and others – the more consumers and our world benefit.