Johnson and Johnson has published a new stand-alone website entitled http://www.safetyandcarecommitment.com/  The site is one of the most extensive published commitments to product safety and corporate sustainability performance that we have seen from any personal care products company. While GallonDaily is disinclined to report on promises, greatly preferring to report on targets achieved, the J&J website is sufficiently outstanding that it could be helpful to any company seeking to establish internal targets for consumer product manufacturing.

Sections include J&J’s Commitment and Principles, Safety Assurance Process, Research Promise, Sustainability Promise, and Ingredient Policies. The Company’s Healthy Future 2015 program sets out what it describes as “15 of the boldest and broadest sustainability goals we have set to date”.  GallonDaily agrees that the goals are quite ambitious.

On the product side, J&J states that it will

• phase out formaldehyde releasers from all baby and products, making rare exceptions for adult products only when alternatives are not feasible or safe in formulation with other ingredients.
• phase out the use of all parabens from our baby care products and, for adult products, the use of parabens in new products will be restricted to methyl, ethyl and propyl parabens, which have been extensively studied for safety and are supported by Regulatory Authorities around the world. All other types of parabens will be phased out in all our adult products.
• reduce traces of 1,4 dioxane in our baby products to what is currently the lowest reliably measurable level, 1 to 4 ppm. The methods we use are designed to limit the amount to 1 ppm, but since tests cannot reliably discern among levels this low, we can safely say 1 to 4 ppm. In our adult products, we are reducing 1,4 dioxane to below 10 ppm, which is lower than the levels considered safe by regulators around the world.
• phase out diethylphthalate, the only phthalate currently used in adult products. It is already not used in J&J baby products.
• eliminate triclosan in adult products. It is already not used in baby products.
• phase out the following fragrance ingredients:
  • Animal-derived ingredients
  • Nitromusks and polycyclic musks
  • Tagetes
  • Rose crystal
  • Diacetyl
  • Diethyl phthalates  (already eliminated in our baby care products)