Sustainability Stewardship
Service
Innovation management
Product innovations play an essential role if we are to decouple better quality of life from resource consumption. This is why one of the strategic principles for implementing our sustainability strategy is: “our products.” They should offer customers and consumers more value and better performance while having a smaller ecological footprint. For us, this is not a question of developing individual “green” products where only the ecological profile has been improved. Our aim is to continuously improve all products across our entire portfolio, taking every aspect into account. This requires a high degree of innovativeness.
In 2012, Henkel employed about 2,700 people in research and development and invested 408 million euros in these activities. In order to steer product development in line with our sustainability strategy from the outset, our focal areas have been anchored in the Henkel innovation process since 2008.
Sustainability evaluation in the Henkel innovation process
- The Henkel focal areas have been systematically anchored in our innovation process since 2008. This means that at a given point our researchers must demonstrate the specific advantages of their project in regard to product performance, added value for customers and consumers, and social criteria (“more value”). They also have to show how it contributes to using less resources (“reduced footprint”). The Henkel Sustainability#Master is one of the tools they use to assess the different contributions.
Last updated: March 6, 2013