0:09

Welcome to "All business. No boundaries.", a collection

0:12

of supply chain stories by DHL Supply

0:14

Chain, the North American leader in contract

0:16

logistics. I'm your host

0:17

Will Heywood. This is a place

0:20

for in depth discussions on the supply chain challenges

0:22

keeping you up at night. We're breaking

0:24

beyond the boundaries that are limiting your supply chain

0:26

. Let's dive in. Today's

0:29

episode is "Doing Well by Doing

0:31

Good: Removing Barriers to Achieve High

0:33

Impact Corporate Social Responsibility." My guests are

0:36

Ann Tracy, who

0:38

is Chief Sustainability Officer for

0:40

the Colgate-Palmolive company and

0:43

Emily Davis, Director of Sustainability for

0:46

DHL Supply Chain. Welcome to you both.

0:49

Ann, I'd like to start with you. One

0:52

of our themes of the podcast is breaking boundaries

0:54

and you're breaking two, being our first

0:56

non-DHL guest, so thank

0:58

you for that. Secondly, and more importantly,

1:01

you've recently been promoted to

1:03

the Chief Sustainability Officer

1:05

role at Colgate, and

1:07

I understand that this is a new position for your

1:09

company. Why was it created and

1:12

what do you hope to accomplish as the

1:14

first person to occupy the position?

1:16

Well, thanks, Will. And thank you for

1:18

welcoming me to your DHL

1:21

podcast . I feel honored to be the first outside guest.

1:24

So just a little bit about me. I've

1:26

been with Colgate quite a long time. In

1:28

fact, nearly 30 years. I grew

1:30

up, so to speak, in the supply chain.

1:32

So I've had roles across

1:34

that timeframe in all aspects

1:36

of the supply chain end to end. And

1:39

then about two and a half years ago,

1:41

I came back to New York and

1:44

moved into a role, it was actually a hybrid

1:46

role of supply chain strategy

1:48

and global sustainability, and

1:50

it kept me very busy. I have to say , with

1:53

the escalation and focus on

1:56

all things sustainability, environmental, social,

1:58

and governance over the last couple of years,

2:01

I was spending a lot more time on

2:03

the sustainability side of the business.

2:06

And we're busy right now at Colgate

2:08

developing 2025 strategies

2:11

at the corporate level for our supply

2:13

chain. We're calling it re-imagined supply chain,

2:15

as well as our sustainability

2:17

strategy, which we'll hopefully talk about

2:20

in a few minutes. I'm very pleased

2:22

to acknowledge that Colgate recognized

2:24

the need to focus in this space

2:26

and decided that it was a time

2:29

to dedicate an executive

2:31

level role on this topic.

2:34

As part of our new corporate strategy, we've

2:36

developed a new purpose for

2:38

our company, so the time was

2:40

right for it. And I think we'll talk more

2:42

about the escalation of some of the

2:44

topics that are important for companies like

2:47

DHL, the space you operate

2:49

in, but also for consumer good

2:51

companies like Colgate-Palmolive. And,

2:54

you know, we have a vision, ultimately,

2:56

to fully embed and integrate

2:58

sustainability across the business,

3:01

across all functions of the business. So,

3:03

you know, we need that focus right now to

3:05

make that happen.

3:06

Emily, in your travels with

3:08

our various customers, are you seeing similar

3:12

appointments happening in other organizations?

3:14

Thanks for the question, Will. Even within

3:17

DPDHL, we have board level sponsorship

3:19

of sustainability all the way up to our

3:21

CEO, Dr. Frank Appel. And

3:24

we have a myriad of associates that are responsible

3:26

directly for delivering our agenda, but

3:28

we're just now seeing the tide turning

3:30

in terms of C-suite level responsibility.

3:33

I think in about 2014 or so,

3:36

you started to see only 36

3:38

public companies in the US alone

3:40

really had a CSO and that's

3:42

about 12%, unfortunately,

3:44

of thousands of companies. And

3:46

so what we're seeing with positions like Ann's coming

3:49

up is that it's a demonstration

3:51

by companies that they're evolving. And they're

3:53

saying it's important from a risk standpoint,

3:55

and it's important from a strategy standpoint, too. And

3:58

of course, we continue to see advancement

4:00

of diversity within the C-suite as well,

4:02

such as DHL's permission of women in management

4:05

for which we received a catalyst award last

4:07

year in 2019.

4:09

Great, great. So Ann, coming back

4:11

to a couple of your comments around the

4:14

Colgate strategy that's emerging

4:16

here. I mean, how does Colgate see sustainability

4:18

within the context of its overall business strategy

4:21

and then maybe some detail

4:23

on tactically what are you guys looking to

4:25

do in the next near to mid-term?

4:27

Sure. So, you know, again,

4:31

future forward and thinking about

4:33

2025, Colgate

4:35

is a purpose driven company

4:38

and sustainability is at the heart

4:40

of that purpose. And just to share

4:42

with the audience our new purpose, we

4:44

are Colgate a caring, innovative

4:46

growth company, reimagining a healthy

4:49

future for people, their

4:51

pets and our planet. So you can see how

4:53

it's really anchored in

4:55

building a better world for our stakeholders

4:58

going forward. So combine that

5:00

with what we call our super power

5:02

. The Colgate brand is actually

5:05

the largest brand with the most household

5:08

penetration in the world, even

5:10

bigger than Coca Cola. So we

5:12

are in more homes than any other brand out

5:14

there. And we're very proud of that fact.

5:17

So we believe with that superpower

5:19

, we have a responsibility to

5:22

be more sustainable and to message to the

5:24

people who buy our products. We're

5:26

just getting ready to formally launch our new

5:28

2025 sustainability strategy.

5:31

We kind of initiated it on

5:33

Earth Day with our own employees, but

5:35

we're going to do it in a bigger way during climate

5:37

week, both internally and externally.

5:39

So, you know, building on the superpower

5:41

that we're in more households than any other,

5:44

we have a new mission, which is that

5:46

Colgate invites a billion homes

5:48

to create a

5:50

healthy and sustainable future.

5:53

And that's our mission.

5:55

It sits very nicely under our corporate

5:57

purpose. And with this, we've

6:00

designed 12 new bold ambitions

6:02

and targets. What we're really

6:04

trying to do with this new strategy

6:06

is for the first time in a more

6:09

engaging and compelling way, we

6:12

want to reach our consumers. We want to reach

6:14

all our key stakeholders . And

6:16

as we do this, we want to build purpose

6:18

driven brands and we want to take

6:20

our environmental leadership to the next

6:22

level to help contribute

6:25

to holding climate change at 1.5

6:27

degrees, the United nations pledge.

6:29

And finally, we want to attract

6:32

all key stakeholders, whether they're future

6:34

talent, current employees, our

6:36

retailers, our customers, and

6:38

working with partners like DHL.

6:41

So, in terms of

6:44

the economics of this, I mean, you're a publicly

6:46

traded company and shareholders like returns.

6:49

How do you think about the costs of

6:51

putting in sustainable solutions, potential

6:53

revenue growth? How do those pieces

6:55

fit together? I mean, even as simple as

6:58

how do you factor in sustainability

7:00

in your ROI calculations when you're looking at different

7:02

projects?

7:03

You know, the way I would answer that is that

7:05

purpose driven means

7:07

that we consider stakeholders

7:10

as important as shareholders, first

7:12

and foremost. And we know that

7:14

our stakeholders, whether it's the

7:17

people that buy our products or

7:19

investors, now consider purpose as

7:21

a barrier to entry in buying

7:23

and using our products. And this

7:25

is really evident across

7:28

the younger generations, millennials and gen

7:30

Z . So we recognize that

7:33

and prioritize sustainability benefits

7:35

when we're making decisions, because

7:37

there's lots of data out there that says

7:40

sustainable products grow at a faster

7:43

pace than core business.

7:45

And I think as well, there's intangible benefits

7:48

that people are making decisions based

7:51

on the trust they have in

7:53

the equity of a company or in what a company

7:55

does. So in terms

7:57

of real hardcore ROI,

8:00

we're exploring methodologies right

8:02

now to help us do that, to help us fine

8:04

tune our decisions. We

8:06

don't have a model in place that we're using

8:08

just yet, but that's definitely one of our key

8:10

objectives going forward. So

8:12

we're exploring different partners to help us

8:14

do that. I will offer that one

8:17

of the groups we're looking at working with who

8:19

have such a model is the NYU

8:22

Stern Business School. They have a center

8:24

for sustainability and they have

8:26

a model they call ROSI, which stands

8:28

for return on sustainable investment.

8:31

We intend to put some models

8:33

in place. We don't have that right now, but

8:35

I think intuitively we know sustainable,

8:38

more natural, circular packaging

8:41

does drive good business

8:43

sense and helps us build our business.

8:47

Emily, when you work with customers,

8:49

how are they addressing this? Or how do

8:51

you maybe help them step through their own

8:53

thinking on the overall solution?

8:56

To even think about an ROI analysis

8:59

for sustainability, I want to just

9:01

take a step back and think about how this has evolved

9:03

over time. I've been in this

9:05

space for about 20 years myself.

9:08

And how this has evolved

9:10

is that the conversation around sustainability,

9:12

especially environmental sustainability,

9:15

started through health safety and environments

9:17

teams and compliance teams where

9:20

these were the cost of business. It had

9:22

to be done. It had to be implemented.

9:24

Regulations had to be adhered

9:26

to, and that all still stands. Nothing

9:28

has changed there. But even when I

9:31

was in business school, the classes

9:33

that we were taking on the sustainability topic

9:35

were called voluntary over compliance,

9:37

which means that something beyond what

9:40

you're required to do. And so now

9:42

we kind of went to the second iteration

9:45

where cost savings

9:47

and triple bottom line were the

9:49

kind of cachet of the day and people were talking

9:52

about the fact that this is a win, win,

9:54

win for everyone when we have green solutions implemented.

9:57

Now a new day has dawned

10:00

and we are in a world

10:02

where we have millennial populations

10:05

that are coming into positions of authority

10:07

and decision making in our corporate workplaces.

10:10

We've got significant challenges that

10:12

we're facing globally from environmental

10:15

justice to climate change that we have

10:17

to face. And so we have to do things.

10:19

We have to make improvements. We have to look

10:22

at our supply chain models, our materials,

10:24

our impacts. And so we

10:26

have to start selling it as

10:28

well. And I think Colgate

10:30

is a great example of a company

10:33

who's really taken this to heart with regards

10:35

to their products and saying, not only are we

10:37

going to do the responsible thing,

10:39

but we're going to promote the responsible

10:42

thing internally with our products,

10:44

to our customers in these communities.

10:47

And at DHL, as

10:49

you know, we were one of the first logistics

10:51

companies that set a target around

10:54

green sales. So we have a target

10:56

by 2025, that 50%

10:59

of our sales revenues as a company is going to come

11:01

from green supply chain solutions. And

11:03

we did that because we know that these

11:05

solutions may not get implemented

11:08

always, and people might not become

11:10

innovative and creative and think

11:12

hard about how to commercialize it unless

11:14

we have a target. So the

11:17

game has definitely changed. I

11:19

do think that there's residual challenges

11:22

around finding the cost benefit

11:24

of some of these things, especially when you're talking

11:27

about large capital projects like

11:29

solar panels, building improvements

11:31

, alternative fuel vehicles

11:33

and whatnot, but it can be done.

11:36

I do think though that the challenges are going

11:38

to remain for a while and so

11:40

a lot of times we're still talking about those

11:43

soft benefits, those intangible benefits,

11:45

because it resonates to associates

11:48

and to our customers and to a new generation.

11:51

And she's absolutely right that, historically, sustainability

11:54

has been anchored in the supply chain. It

11:56

has been the pattern that,

11:58

you know, often reducing water,

12:00

reducing energy has been good for cost

12:03

effectiveness, but I think, to Emily's

12:05

point, we're way past that now, and it's about

12:08

the triple bottom line and building

12:10

the business by doing the right thing

12:12

and investing in the right things. You

12:14

know, I think scale, ultimately, is

12:16

going to continue to be a challenge

12:19

for awhile , but I think scale is going to help

12:21

us all to get there as we set

12:23

these targets like DHL has set

12:25

and the ones we're setting. You know

12:27

, I think that's the secret behind the circular

12:29

economy is that everybody,

12:32

all industries have to come along. Once

12:35

we get that scale, I think the

12:37

supply and demand curves are going to change

12:39

on a lot of these different areas, whether

12:41

it's plastic or energy or

12:44

fuel .

12:46

Great, thank you both for those answers.

12:48

That's a new concept for me, voluntary over

12:50

compliance. Emily, I may have to use that

12:53

with my children. I know

12:56

Colgate has a zero waste objective.

12:59

Can you talk about what that is and

13:01

what are some of the things that company's doing

13:03

to support or move in that direction

13:05

or achieve that goal?

13:07

Sure. And in fact, the

13:09

topic of zero waste is maybe a great pivot

13:11

from the last topic because intuitively

13:15

as we reduce the amount of waste

13:17

right now focused in our operations,

13:19

in our manufacturing sites, reducing

13:21

your waste is going to reduce your costs.

13:23

So we, along

13:28

with a number of other industries

13:30

and companies, have had internal zero

13:32

waste programs in place.

13:34

But a couple of years ago, we

13:36

partnered with the US

13:38

Green Building Council, which is

13:40

the same organization that certifies

13:44

buildings and communities as lead

13:46

certified around the world. And most

13:48

people are somewhat familiar with that branding

13:50

of the lead certification. So they

13:52

have a new certification that they call

13:55

true zero waste certification.

13:57

So you have to kind of adhere to

13:59

all their criteria, but the

14:03

simple way to explain it is

14:05

that at the site, you are

14:08

aiming to become true zero waste certified.

14:10

You have to reduce all the waste,

14:12

every bit of waste coming out of that site to less

14:15

than 10% to landfill. And it

14:17

cannot include anything going to

14:19

incineration. So plants

14:22

all really embrace

14:24

this as a challenge. It was great. And

14:27

we have some wonderful examples

14:29

where they start

14:31

by doing something called a dumpster dive.

14:33

They literally take a dumpster, empty

14:35

it on the ground and sort through it. And

14:37

as they sort through it, they look for

14:39

all the opportunities to reduce, reuse,

14:42

recycle, and just plain

14:44

get rid of waste. And as they're doing

14:46

that, they come up with a plan. It usually

14:48

takes them a year or two to complete all

14:51

the criteria, and they

14:53

go after the certification. So now

14:56

we have, because of their

14:58

excitement and embracing this program,

15:01

we earned a lot of firsts, which is fun.

15:03

We were the first in Asia, the first

15:05

in Latin America, our Colombia plant

15:08

was certified. We are now

15:10

just a couple of weeks ago, the first to

15:12

get a certification for a plant in Africa.

15:15

So our South African plant. So we now have

15:17

certification across five continents.

15:19

And over half of our, not

15:21

over half, I should say by 2021 half

15:24

our plants will be certified. So

15:26

we're looking to extend that program to

15:28

our offices. So we're starting

15:30

to work on that and we have a

15:32

target, so speaking of setting targets, you

15:34

have to set those targets if you want to get there,

15:37

that a hundred percent of all our sites,

15:39

Colgate operational sites and offices, will

15:42

be true zero waste certified

15:44

by 2025. It's a great

15:46

team building exercise. And

15:49

it also overall reduces costs

15:51

at the site you're operating at . So it's a win,

15:53

win, win program.

15:54

Right, right. Emily, does

15:57

DHL have any zero waste sites or

15:59

plans to move in that direction?

16:01

One of my favorite topics, Will. There's

16:04

two specific places that I think zero waste

16:06

is relevant to DHL Supply Chain.

16:09

One is around zero waste for operations,

16:12

similar to what Ann's mentioned.

16:14

And by the way, in some of the zero

16:16

waste implementations for Colgate have been

16:18

inspirations to me and to our

16:21

side , really great work there. We

16:23

have several customers that actually

16:25

have their own zero waste targets, right? Like Colgate.

16:28

And so where we have those targets

16:30

from our customers, we deliver that. So we

16:32

have a lot of zero waste landfill operations

16:35

globally and in North America

16:37

right now. Even some of the entire customer

16:39

networks in some places, which

16:41

I'm very glad to see., Mainly I'm seeing

16:44

that in the consumer space to be perfectly

16:46

honest, but I think that's going to be

16:49

more the norm. It's usually

16:51

companies that have large manufacturing

16:53

operations, and they set the targets there

16:56

and extend those targets to

16:58

their tier one and tier suppliers over time.

17:00

And that's what we're seeing now in supply chain

17:02

is we're starting to get a lot more inquiries

17:04

about how we can do that. And

17:06

it's not easy. I'm sure that

17:09

Ann will echo that as well. We're having

17:11

significant capacity and constraint

17:14

problems in the North American market

17:16

about taking recycling and getting higher

17:18

value and seeing that the cost

17:20

to recycle being an overall cost

17:23

to the operation. But nevertheless,

17:25

I do also want to say that I advocate

17:28

using standard programs because

17:30

if you go into an operation and ask them

17:32

if they're really sending zero waste to

17:34

landfill, unless they've documented

17:37

and used third party certification systems,

17:39

it's really hard to verify that. We

17:41

also are trying to use the US

17:44

Green Building Council true standard,

17:46

at least to model our own implementations

17:48

in region. We don't

17:50

have any operations certified yet. I'm hoping

17:52

to see some in 2021

17:54

for us, but that's the first place

17:57

that we have relevance is within our own operations.

17:59

And the second is within

18:01

circular economies. And what

18:03

we see in supply chain is that we're the engine

18:06

to get materials back and forth

18:08

into companys' manufacturing

18:10

and for product end of life. Supply

18:13

chain can be the solution to making

18:15

sure that we have packaging

18:17

or raw materials

18:20

coming back in and flowing

18:22

more efficiently, more easily. And we're

18:24

doing that now. We've done that

18:26

with organic waste and some of our

18:28

airline solutions in the UK, we've

18:31

done it with integrated waste management,

18:33

also in the UK within supply chain

18:35

where we're managing our own waste flows

18:37

and brokering that into recycling markets.

18:40

And we're starting to see questions about

18:42

how can we promote reverse logistics

18:44

for specific materials that our

18:46

product waste of our customers and how do

18:48

we consolidate those and get them back

18:51

into the supply chain.

18:52

So speaking of recycling. Ann, I'm very

18:54

curious about this recyclable

18:56

toothpaste tube project that you guys

18:59

have. Can you tell us about that?

19:01

Sure. So we

19:04

had a target

19:06

for 2020 to

19:09

develop recyclable packaging

19:11

for three out of our four categories.

19:14

So Colgate has personal care

19:16

products like liquid

19:18

hand soap, bar soap. We have

19:20

home care products, cleaning products, and we

19:22

have pet care products with Hill's Pet Nutrition.

19:25

And we've progressed, by the way, on

19:27

the packaging for those three, the obvious

19:29

one that's missing is our oral care

19:31

category. And we started

19:34

nearly four or five years ago,

19:37

knowing that we'd have to get there

19:39

because we are the oral care leaders in

19:41

the world. We should take the first step

19:43

towards recyclable packaging

19:46

for toothpaste. You would think

19:48

it's easy. It isn't that hard, but it

19:50

isn't that easy to develop

19:53

a recyclable tube because we had

19:55

some pretty strict criteria when we started

19:57

the effort. We said first and foremost,

20:01

to make a recyclable tube we

20:03

wanted it to be able to go into

20:05

an already existing

20:07

recycling stream. So we didn't want to have

20:09

to create something new. So we set out

20:11

to say, our tube will go in the milk

20:14

bottle or HDPE stream.

20:17

And then we definitely

20:19

wanted it to look and feel

20:21

very acceptable to the people who buy the

20:23

product and it had to maintain

20:26

the efficacy of

20:28

the fluoride and the flavor. So those

20:30

were all important criteria. So

20:33

what you may or may not know is most

20:36

tubes today have an

20:38

aluminum layer in the middle. So

20:40

tubes are made of layers of plastic and

20:43

aluminum , which is

20:45

why it keeps the memory when you squeeze

20:47

it. You know, some people squeeze from the bottom,

20:49

some people squeeze from the middle, but it

20:52

maintains that memory. But

20:54

that helps protect what's inside

20:56

to make sure it works for you and keeps

20:58

cavities away. So our

21:01

engineers worked at

21:03

it and developed,

21:06

eventually, a multilayer

21:08

mano-material tube that meets

21:10

all the criteria that I just said, but

21:13

that was just half the battle. So that was

21:15

great. But then we had to prove that it

21:17

worked in the recycling stream

21:19

and the infrastructure. And

21:22

we continue to work on educating

21:25

the MRFs or the material recycling facilities

21:27

and educating consumers with

21:29

the fact that, you know, this too is

21:32

recyclable. So we

21:35

had to partner with a lot of external

21:37

NGOs, such as the American Association

21:40

of Plastic Recyclers, APR,

21:42

the recycling partnerships in

21:44

Europe with PRE or

21:46

the Plastic Recyclers Europe. So many

21:48

different NGOs to help

21:50

us adopt and

21:53

recognize officially

21:56

the recyclability of the tube.

21:59

Okay. So here we are today. We have a rollout

22:01

plan, we're fully committed. In

22:03

fact, we're committing a lot of capital investment

22:05

to convert every one of our last tubes

22:08

to recycleable. It'll take a couple

22:10

of years to convert all the equipment, but

22:14

it doesn't do the world any good if Colgate

22:16

has the only recyclable tube.

22:19

In fact, it's not by definition,

22:21

the Ellen MacArthur Foundation defines

22:23

recyclable when

22:25

40% of the

22:28

packaging is actually recycled

22:30

on a per capita basis. So we're not

22:32

there yet. So we have to get other tubes to join

22:34

us. So we

22:36

decided to open source the technology,

22:38

meaning we're openly sharing the technology

22:41

that we worked on for the last several years

22:44

with other companies to encourage

22:46

them to move

22:48

to the same recyclable tube so we're all

22:50

recyclable. And we've so

22:52

far shared with about 15 different companies.

22:55

In fact, one of them is a direct competitor

22:57

of ours. This is the path and

22:59

the journey that we're on. We're very excited

23:01

about it. We haven't slowed down

23:03

at all. We're very committed to moving

23:06

forward.

23:06

Yeah, that is very interesting and a lot more

23:08

complicated than I would have thought outside looking

23:11

in. Speaking of complicated, COVID-19

23:14

is complicating all of our lives in

23:16

all kinds of ways. Emily, how

23:18

is it affecting how you or

23:21

people you work with think about sustainability.

23:24

I'll tell you, Will, I know that from a customer

23:26

perspective, the demand for sustainable

23:28

solutions and questions about it has not

23:30

diminished despite the fact that COVID

23:32

is everybody's top priority. I

23:35

think that what's happening with emission

23:37

reduction from less air travel

23:39

and less associate travel in general

23:42

has really raised the visibility

23:43

of the positive

23:45

impacts of what we can

23:47

do when we're forced to do it in

23:50

terms of our impact on this world. But

23:52

within supply chain, I do see a lot of

23:54

challenges that have been created by COVID.

23:57

We've got battery use wipes

24:00

that need to be used for disinfecting,

24:02

and there's some solutions coming on now

24:04

with sprayers and robots to try

24:07

to minimize actual material

24:10

use. Masks, of course is a huge

24:12

one, and the more I see masks

24:14

on the side of the road, the more disheartened

24:16

I become by that. So I love that

24:18

DHL promotes reusable masks

24:21

whenever we can in both our associate

24:24

base and elsewhere. But at the very minimum,

24:26

it's kind of been a wake up call for everybody

24:28

that this is still a relevant topic.

24:31

And how about the Colgate point of view? We

24:33

look at it two ways. So

24:36

building on everything Emily said, and

24:38

I know DHL has been deemed

24:40

an essential business during this time, as well

24:42

as Colgate has and,

24:45

you know, we're very fortunate that we can

24:47

continue to operate and

24:49

provide the products that people need.

24:51

But because of that, I would have to

24:53

say from the start of this pandemic,

24:56

the number one top priority, bar none,

24:58

was health, wellness, and safety

25:00

of our employees. You know , we

25:02

put things in place like providing

25:05

PPE for everyone, social distancing,

25:07

accommodations, temperature screening,

25:10

extra cleaning and sanitization, things like

25:12

this. And I'm sure that

25:14

Emily and her team did the same, that you're

25:16

seeing that across the DHL operations.

25:18

In fact, I know this because

25:21

we do partner quite a lot

25:23

with DHL around the world. And

25:25

our discussions always extended to

25:28

our third party suppliers, to our 3PLS

25:31

to make sure that they were doing

25:34

the same so we could all keep running together.

25:36

We depended on each other. Pleased

25:38

to report that, you know, unfortunately

25:41

we have had cases, which

25:43

should be no surprise, but everybody's recovering

25:47

and we have kept our supply chain running. So

25:49

that's good news. And

25:52

that's largely due to the dedication

25:54

and the cooperation of all our employees

25:55

who honored the

25:58

protocols we put in place. Additionally,

26:00

stepping back and

26:03

recognizing the real big impact

26:06

it's had on the world. And I

26:08

think we're only really just now

26:10

starting to see the social impact

26:13

and the fallout, if you will, of people

26:15

losing their jobs and some

26:17

people having to work because

26:19

they couldn't afford not to. There's

26:22

a lot of compromised communities around

26:24

the world. You know, we've been giving

26:26

product away wherever we

26:29

can, but we also had a special

26:31

campaign where we

26:34

adopted the World Health Organization

26:36

guidelines on how to wash your hands. We

26:38

produced and distributed unbranded

26:42

bar soap to communities that needed

26:44

it to help them learn how

26:46

to protect themselves by washing

26:48

their hands in the right way. So

26:50

we're actually nearly done with this first

26:53

wave. I don't know if we'll continue

26:55

that, but we've distributed now nearly

26:57

all the 25 million bars of soap. And

27:01

this went to communities across 30 different countries.

27:03

I will tell you, I happen to know

27:05

that in certain locations, DHL donated

27:08

the delivery. So thank you on behalf

27:10

of Colgate for helping in this project

27:13

and you guys contributed, which

27:15

is great. So that's one

27:17

of the ways we're giving back just a

27:19

final comment because you asked, and I agree

27:21

a hundred percent with Emily. It has not

27:24

slowed down our focus on sustainability.

27:26

If anything, it's accelerated

27:29

in particular areas around building

27:31

sustainable habits, like hand-washing

27:33

in the just general

27:36

awareness of the impact that climate

27:38

change is having. You know, some say

27:40

climate change is going to have a similar

27:43

impact to COVID, just over a longer timeframe.

27:46

And one of the biggest impact

27:49

areas that people are becoming aware of

27:51

is just waste overall. We talked

27:53

about zero waste, but we

27:56

talked about just

27:58

when you order a lot more online,

28:00

you're going to just generate a lot more waste at

28:02

home. An interesting area

28:05

of future opportunity for us. I know

28:07

Emily mentioned reversal logistics.

28:10

So maybe there is a project in there somewhere

28:12

for us to collaborate on.

28:14

Yeah, well, we would certainly certainly welcome that.

28:16

And it seems like a high

28:18

potential area. I'd like

28:20

to thank you both for your time today and it was really

28:23

generous to do this. And the

28:25

insights were great. I really enjoyed the conversation.

28:28

So thanks for being with us here.

28:30

Thank you!

28:30

Oh yeah, you bet. For our audience. I want to thank

28:32

you for listening. If you enjoyed this conversation today,

28:34

please share it with a friend. You can find

28:36

us online at dhl.com/allbusinessno boundaries.

28:39

Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter @DHLSupplyChain.

28:44

If you'd like to continue the conversation or leave

28:46

feedback about this episode or any others,

28:48

please drop us a line.