Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is the world's sixth-largest consumer health company. The company's product stewardship programme, Earthwards, was launched as the company had a hunch that the market would demand greener products that could deliver added value and performance. It's an approach that uses lifecycle data to identify the environmental and social impacts of a product, and identifies opportunities to dematerialise them. Earthwards recognition is reserved for the company's most improved products, which must achieve three significant improvements across seven impact areas: materials, packaging, energy, water, waste, positive social impact and product innovation. When a product does achieve Earthwards recognition, the outcomes are impressive. One example is J&J's work with DePuy Synthes, part of the J&J companies portfolio. DePuy Synthes manufactures replacement knees and through adopting the Earthwards approach for its Attune Knee system, the company reduced the number of instruments required for surgery by 36% compared to a previous version of the knee. Further savings were acquired in the instrument sterilisation process, which now uses 22% less energy and 25% less water. Packaging was also reduced by 25%. The Band-Aid brand has also had the Earthwards treatment, resulting in 29% dematerialisation savings. The manufacturing process for this product line now requires 30% less energy compared to the previous process, and shipping efficiencies have increased by 60%. As a result, the product has achieved a 42% reduction in GHG emissions of raw material transport. Read more at: