Home & Personal Care Sector: Research and Deliverables
Research:
The Home and Personal Care Sector completes Social Scoping Report for their three product prototypes (Laundry Detergents, Shampoo and Surface Cleaning). Each report provides and overview of the potential social risks related to the supply chains that back the north american consumer goods market for each products. The reports analysis is based on publically available literature and an analysis using the Social Hot Spot Database developed by researcher Catherine Benoit and her team at the University of New Hampshire. The reports mark a critical step in developing knowledge and awareness of important issues which will inform the development process of social indicators relating to home and personal care products.
Deliverables:
The Home and Personal Care Sector Task Forces, which are comprised of small groups of members and expert partners, continue their work on developing guiding principles and performance indicators for home and personal care products relating to chemicals management and social responsibility. Their work involves reviewing exististing initiatives that can be adopt or augmented to meet the needs of the sector. In some instances where gaps are found the task forces will also propose new principles and indicators that accurately reflect the specific risks and challenges unique to manufacturers and suppliers of home and personal care products. Their work will then be open for review and comment by the rest of the sector before being made available to the public.
The Home and Personal Care Sector’s Product Committees are making final changes to the Product Category Baseline Models and Product Category Rules for the sector thre flagship products (Laundry Detergent, Shampoo and Surface Cleaners). This work is the culmination of first of its kind process involving product and LCA experts from the worlds largest home and personal care manufacturing companies. The result of this work, which incorpoates uncertainty, lays the foundation for the world’s most robust system for analyzing and making comparative ascertions within the three product categories analyzed. This work will be launced into an external review process beginning in July 2011.
