Environmental Leader

Clorox has become the first major consumer products firm to launch a line of environmentally-friendly cleaners, announces the San Francisco Chronicle. All products in the new line, called Green Works, will carry the logo of the Sierra Club.Smaller companies, such as Seventh Generation and Method, have made green cleaners for years, but last year, while Americans spent $432 million on all-pupose cleaners, only one percent went to Method and 0.3 percent to Seventh Generation. From 2006 to 2007, sales of natural cleaning products rose 23 percent.

Over the summer, Method launched an advertising campaign called Detox Your Home that showcases the company’s biodegradable cleaning products,In what could be a marketing bonanza, Clorox received certification as a safer product by the Design for the Environment program of the EPA, and it also got the Sierra Club to approve use of the Club’s logo on all Green Works products, the first time that has ever happened for a household cleaning product.

As a result, Sierra Club will receive an undisclosed fee based partly on sales. “We hope we are transforming the marketplace by doing this,” said Carl Pope, executive director of Sierra Club.The products will be available in 24,000 stores nationally, including Safeway and Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart already has plans to take Green Works global.

The move by Clorox could help dispel fears that Clorox will drag Burt’s Bees, which Clorox acquired last year, away from its sustainability roots.“Don’t judge Clorox as much by where they’ve been as much as where they intend to go,” said John Replogle, the CEO of Burt’s Bees, in a recent article.