The first-ever sustainability report for the US cleaning products industry was released in mid-April by the American Cleaning Institute (ACI, formerly The Soap and Detergent Association). It showcases aggregated environmental metrics data from producers and suppliers of cleaning products and snapshots of the industry’s social and environmental sustainability programs and activities.

ACI’s 2011 Sustainability Report is available at www.cleaninginstitute.org

In 2009, ACI and its members embarked on a project to report on a common set of sustainability-related metrics relevant to both its consumer packaged goods and raw material supplier members.

As part of ACI’s Sustainability Metrics Project, 20 member companies (representing 73 percent of ACI’s dues-assessed member product sales) participated in a project to track environmental sustainability metrics.

“Establishing these metrics provides a baseline for indicators by which we can measure sustainability-related performance for the production of cleaning products at ACI member manufacturing facilities in the United States,” said Ernie Rosenberg, ACI president and CEO.

The report summarises data on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), energy use, water use and solid waste associated with US production of cleaning products.