Procter & Gamble: Mastering the Art of the Innovation Tournament

Procter & Gamble: Mastering the Art of the Innovation Tournament:

"CEO Bob McDonald is a man with a plan. Last year, he and his company declared a bold vision -- one that includes making all products and packaging with recycled or renewable materials and ensuring that no waste from P&G products touches a landfill. Prominent in the vision, too, is powering all plants with renewable energy. Because all of this will take decades to achieve, P&G also declared a series of shorter-term, 10-year goals to guarantee that the company is making progress. The 2020 renewable-energy goal is to power 30% of P&G's energy needs for 180 plants worldwide with renewable sources. ...

The U.S. plant at Cape Girardeau, Mo., proved a case in point. "The U.S. site was the most difficult," Bowles notes. "The cost of power is incredibly low there, and there are limited state incentives." Yet the site provided plenty of land and access to the Mississippi River. Members of the group decided that relatively low-cost biomass energy fueled by wood or agricultural feedstock nearby was the best solution, and they also agreed to explore hydropower and biogas options.

Run-of-the-river hydro, in which power is harvested from natural currents via small generators in the water rather than by dams, was not high on P&G's original list. But after input from external experts, P&G is now watching this emerging technology for the medium term. "My guess is it will be seven to 10 years out before it's widespread," says Scott Borcherding, alternative energy leader in P&G's global facilities engineering. Meanwhile, P&G has since largely discarded the idea of biogas at Cape Girardeau because the agricultural and organic waste available locally to generate the methane or natural gas falls short of the plant's power needs."

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