P&G becomes supporter of ingredient disclosure rule

Bloomberg

It took more than a decade, but California has a new law requiring extensive labelling of ingredients in cleaning products, and it got support from what might seem the unlikeliest of advocates: product manufacturers themselves.
Companies like Procter & Gamble Co. and Easy-Off maker Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc, after years of arguing the need to preserve their proprietary formulas in detergents and oven cleaners, came to the table with lawmakers and health and environmental groups and ultimately signed on.
P&G, which makes Mr. Clean and Comet, and other manufacturers have also faced growing pressure from retailers to disclose—and in some cases, remove—ingredients. Merchants are responding to customers’ demands for transparency about chemicals like formaldehyde and phthalates. “The timing was right,” said Julie Froelicher, P&G’s North American regulatory and technical relations manager. A “growing chorus” of consumers want to know more about what’s in their products, she said.
But pushback is building, too. The Trump administration’s deregulation drive and a raft of disclosure measures in other states has prompted about 50 trade groups to lobby for a national labelling standard that would challenge rules like the new California law. Opponents say such a move would weaken consumer protections. States have long set the pace for regulating consumer safety, with California leading the way.
Governor Jerry Brown signed California’s Cleaning Product Right to Know Act into law in October. The first phase takes effect in 2020, when manufacturers of detergents, disinfectants and other household products will be required to list
online any substances linked to harmful health effects, along with most other ingredients. By January 2021, they will need to do so on product labels as well.
In New York, meantime, Governor Andrew Cuomo used his 2017 state-of-the-state report to announce that manufacturers would be required to list cleaning-product chemicals on easily searchable websites. Though New York has had disclosure regulations on its books for four decades, they haven’t been enforced. The state is working to finalise updated rules.
According to the Environmental Working Group only 7 percent
of cleaning products adequately list ingredients.
Wal-Mart Move
Yet pressure on manufacturers is growing from leading retailers like Target Corp. and Home Depot Inc. Last year, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. specified eight chemical groups it wants eliminated, including formaldehyde, and this year, expanded the list of substances it’s encouraging suppliers to remove.
“Over the years, I think that a lot of the fundamental attitude of ‘we’re not doing this’ eroded, in part because of what Wal-Mart was doing,” said Deborah Goldberg, a managing attorney at Earthjustice, a group that brings lawsuits to challenge environmental policy. Earthjustice sued P&G, Reckitt Benckiser, Church & Dwight Co. and Colgate-Palmolive Co. in 2009 to force them to comply with the New York state rules issued in the 1970’s. The case was dismissed.
A lot has happened since then. P&G began posting a list of ingredients in its goods in 2012, along with a list of substances it avoids. But it wasn’t product specific, so a consumer couldn’t tell which chemicals were in which items. This year, the company said it would begin listing ingredients in fragrances used in products like Febreze and Herbal Essences. Companies exclude specific components in favour of generic terms like “fragrance,” which can mask dozens of ingredients.