GreenBiz.com, 9 June 2005 - The household products company SC Johnson has used its newly published 2005 Public Report to outline examples of what it calls its Base of the Pyramid (BOP) approach to sustainability. According to SC Johnson, the BOP approach helps stakeholders at every level of the economic pyramid to improve their quality of life while simultaneously helping the business itself.

The U.S.-based multinational, which has annual sales of $6.5 billion, features a number of case studies in its 2005 Public Report titled "Sustaining Values." Included among the case studies are SC Johnson's efforts to help Kenyan farmers increase their crop yields of the plant Pyrethum, which offers protection against malaria. While the increased yields improve the incomes of the farmers, they also help deliver a sustainable supply of the plant's active ingredient to the company, which uses it in some of its insecticide products.

In addition to Kenya, the company is conducting BOP projects in Ghana and South Africa.

"As a family company, we focus on doing what's right for people, the environment and business," said SC Johnson chairman and CEO Dr. Fisk Johnson, the company's fifth-generation family leader. "The BOP strategy aligns with our ongoing commitment to further identify and develop sustainable new products and categories that can improve the lives of consumers at all levels of the economic pyramid."

For the last two years, SC Johnson has been a key partner in the development of the BOP protocol with Stuart L. Hart, author of Capitalism at the Crossroads, released earlier this year.

This article is reproduced with kind permission of GreenBiz.com.