P&G and U.S. EPA Sign Research Agreement to Help Company Attain Sustainability Goals

Partnership to Develop New Tools to Guide Sustainability Improvements within Manufacturing and Supply Chains

From www.pg.com Tuesday, July 24, 2012 9:04 am EDT

CINCINNATI–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Risk Management Research Laboratory (NRMRL) announced today the signing of a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to develop new tools to optimize sustainability improvements in manufacturing facilities, and their associated supply chains.

These improvements will directly address the endpoints of P&G’s long-term environmental sustainability vision, announced in September of 2010. This vision includes: 1) Powering its plants with 100% renewable energy; 2) Using 100% renewable materials or recyclate for all its products and packaging; 3) Having zero consumer or manufacturing waste going to landfills; and 4) Designing products that delight consumers while maximizing the conservation of resources.

In order to meet this commitment, new methods and tools are needed to help optimize design and decision-making across a wide range of operations and supply choices, as well as various environmental sustainability measures. The EPA has developed a comprehensive list of sustainability metrics and performance indicators that can be used to quantify sustainability in a manufacturing and supply chain context, while P&G has a diverse set of manufacturing operations and supply chains that can be leveraged to optimize how such metrics are used to guide improvement choices. The work under this CRADA will leverage P&G’s manufacturing and supply chain knowledge with the EPA’s work on metrics to develop a modeling and assessment tool that can be used to assess future product design, material sourcing, and manufacturing options.

P&G will be developing this framework based on metrics associated with its tissue and towel products. “This is a tremendous opportunity for us to be at the leading edge of developing tools to support the entire company’s effort to improve the sustainability of our products and our operations,” noted Stefano Zenezini, the Vice-President of Product Supply for P&G’s business unit that makes Charmin, Bounty and Puffs. “We’ve made great progress in areas like energy and water use reduction, but really need these new tools to help guide the increasingly complex choices we will be making as we continue to strive to meet the vision the Company has committed to.”

EPA’s NRMRL Director Cynthia Sonich-Mullin, said, “We are very pleased that we can bring our resources together under this CRADA to produce tools that will not only benefit P&G, but other companies as well. Our goal is to develop innovative solutions that have broad applicability in protecting human health and the environment.”

The duration of this CRADA is 5 years.

About EPA Research

Science at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency provides the foundation for credible decision-making to safeguard human health and ecosystems from environmental pollutants. The Office of Research and Development (ORD) is the scientific research arm of EPA, whose leading-edge research helps provide the solid underpinning of science and technology for the Agency. ORD supports six research programs that identify the most pressing environmental health research needs with input from EPA offices, partners and stakeholders. The research is conducted by ORD’s three national laboratories, four national centers, and two offices located in 14 facilities across the country and in Washington, DC.

About Procter & Gamble

P&G serves approximately 4.4 billion people around the world with its brands. The Company has one of the strongest portfolios of trusted, quality, leadership brands, including Pampers®, Tide®, Ariel®, Always®, Whisper®, Pantene®, Mach3®, Bounty®, Dawn®, Fairy®, Gain®, Charmin®, Downy®, Lenor®, Iams®, Crest®, Oral-B®, Duracell®, Olay®, Head & Shoulders®, Wella®, Gillette®, Braun®, Fusion®, Ace®, Febreze®, Ambi Pur®, SK-II®, and Vicks®. The P&G community includes operations in about 80 countries worldwide. Please visit http://www.pg.com for the latest news and in-depth information about P&G and its brands.