For the past year, consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble has been running a fascinating experiment monitoring the homes of 10 American families — but don't worry, no "Black Mirror" or Orwellian vibes here.
Instead, it's perhaps more up the alley of the TV show "The Real World," if that, as P&G has been trying to gather real-world data on whether it's possible for Americans to thrive using just one quarter of the water most people use every day. To test that, the company set up sensors around 10 average American homes to see if small changes with P&G's water-saving products — from dish detergent to shampoos — could help the families reduce their water use without their even noticing. And maybe even save them time.
In an exclusive interview with The Cool Down, Frantz Beznik, P&G's head of sustainable innovation, walked us through the company's #ItsOurHome experiment and some of the results.
Here's how the experiment worked:
• The 10 families voluntarily agreed to let their household water and energy usage be tracked for one year.
• Using smart-metering-connected technology and attaching sensors to water pipes while families performed everyday tasks such as washing dishes, washing hair, shaving, or doing laundry, the team established a baseline over the first month.
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Then they introduced P&G products such as Tide Pods, Cascade Platinum Plus, Dawn Powerwash, Swiffer PowerMop, and Head & Shoulders Bare, which are designed to use less water overall — and facilitate working with cold water in the home rather than hot.
The Furey family of seven was part of the experiment. They have five kids — an 8-year-old and 6-year-old quadruplets — and dad Mike works from home and handles most of the household chores, including laundry and meal prep.
Photo of the Furey family courtesy of P&G
According to P&G, by using these water-saving products the Fureys saved several hours each week and used only half the energy and water the average American does. That's about 65 liters of water instead of the average 300 liters per day.
For Mike Furey, "It was about convenience." Beznik said: "They didn't think about sustainability. They didn't know they were saving money or water — they knew they were saving time."
The backstory:
The experiment was inspired by a real-life crisis in 2018, when water in Cape Town, South Africa, was rationed to 50 liters (about 13 gallons) per person per day because of scarcity that approached what was known as "Day Zero."
"When you have no innovation, it requires a lot of sacrifice," Beznik said. He described people cutting their hair instead of washing it because it was easier without water: "They would take water from the laundry machine to water a plant and then flush the toilet."
That was the "aha moment" for Beznik. This was a future he didn't want the rest of the world to experience — and it was one that would threaten P&G.
"If there's no water, there's not going to be a lot of P&G business," he explained. "We actually want to fix the water issues to enable people to thrive and our business to thrive."
That's because "if you look at the totality of the P&G business and categories, there's one common thread — it's water," he said. "70% of our products use water — we literally touch every stream of water in the home."
Almost one-third of people live in water-stressed regions, and the United Nations says that two-thirds of the global population could be living in water-stressed places by 2025. So, Beznik set out to turn one of the biggest threats to P&G's business — water scarcity — into an opportunity to create superior products for customers. In short, he wanted to "make 50 liters [of water] absolutely irresistible as opposed to sacrificial — to make 50 liters feel like 500."
To do this, his plan included:
• Developing new products that could be more efficient while using less water
• Partnering with other consumer goods companies to create holistic "systems change"
The main takeaways:
Fast-forward to P&G's #ItsOurHome water use campaign with 10 families of different sizes and habits. "That was our sandbox to test the technology so we could measure, decode, and refine the algorithm," Beznik told us.
The main takeaway? "The feedback is that it's actually better living, without massive behavior change," he said. "It's creating day-to-day habit change that helps make you better." And further, the experiment gave families the "opportunity to do things in their home that can have a positive impact on the planet."
Some of the daily changes included:
The way we wash clothes. Using cold water for laundry helped the Fureys save time by avoiding the need to separate clothes by color, since color transfer doesn't happen as often with cold water. Switching to cold water laundry washing could save you $150 - $250 a year, a key marketing message for Tide (one of P&G's brands).
The way we load dishes. Overcoming dishwasher myths was one of P&G's biggest challenges, Beznik said — convincing families not to pre-rinse or worry about packing it full before running. A dishwasher uses just 2-4 gallons of water per cycle versus 12 gallons or more via handwashing and can save you $100 a year or more.
The way we wash dishes. Beznik also said the dishwasher spray Dawn Powerwash was a "massive hero product" because it doesn't require water to scrub dishes, only to rinse them. P&G claims that the spray-activated suds get dishes done five times faster and save 50% of water compared to what's used when the tap is kept running to hand-wash dishes. "These are products that create mindset shifts — 'I don't necessarily need water to wash,'" he said.
Zooming out:
The experiment is featured in a new documentary about water scarcity voiced by Liam Neeson, "Our Blue World: A Water Odyssey," which is being featured in premieres around the world and is expected to be released on a streaming platform.
It's part of P&G's larger mission to address water scarcity across the globe. The company says it's also reducing water by recycling more than 3 billion liters (792 million gallons) of water in its facilities every year.
While it's easy to think of eco-focused brands first when it comes to sustainability in cleaning, big companies such as P&G recognize it matters to customers and are catching up. P&G is a founding member of the 50L Home Coalition alongside other big-named industry partners, including Ikea, Electrolux, and Kohler, that are running an expanded version of the experiment in Los Angeles.
The goal of both experiments is to use the insights and learnings to drive innovation and develop better products for consumers. "I'm in the business to make sustainability irresistible," Beznik said.
"Sustainability cannot scale if there's not a business driver. … We really need to think about how we create a business around sustainability."
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