Tide and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) are collaborating on a new research project to promote eco-behaviour change and establish cold water washing as a widely adopted eco-habit in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The aim is to educate people and make washing laundry in cold water the social norm, and the insights gained from this partnership can be applied to other brands and organizations seeking to work with consumers to make positive environmental impacts. To this end, Tide and WWF engaged the Behavioral Insights Team (BIT) to conduct a thorough review of existing published research and case studies on sustainable habits, including consumer tests from P&G and best practices in climate change from WWF.
The project has identified the significance of using behavioral frameworks and systems thinking, such as creating new consumer habits by providing physical or psychological capabilities, opportunities to act, and motivations to act. Interventions need to be easy, attractive, social, and timely.
Tide has developed an ecosystem that encourages cold water washing through increasing enablers and decreasing barriers, such as setting cold as the default washing machine setting, introducing disruptions during laundry, and making cold water washing a social norm through continued marketing and communications campaigns.
Cold water washing can save up to 90% of energy and $150 per year for Americans. Tide estimates that if three out of four Americans wash the majority of their laundry in cold water for a decade, it will save enough electricity to power New York City and San Francisco for over a year, which is the equivalent of 27 million metric tons (MT) of GHG emissions or nearly ten times P&G’s global yearly operations. Tide has been promoting cold water washing for more than 20 years with breakthrough innovations, such as enzymes optimized for lower wash temperatures.
Tide’s 2030 Ambition is a set of sustainability commitments that includes cutting GHG emissions by half in Tide’s manufacturing plants by 2030, in addition to its ongoing efforts to decarbonize laundry.