Launched in 2016 as a Certified B Corp, Grove Collaborative is the fastest growing retailer of natural products in the U.S.. With brand DNA rooted in providing sustainable, safe and efficacious all-natural household cleaning and personal care solutions to the mass market at an accessible price point, Grove Collaborative is creating a more environmentally conscious CPG industry.
Grove Collaborative’s vision is that consumer products will be a positive force for human and environmental health. The company’s biggest initiative is around single use plastic. Plastic pollution is a continuous problem stemming from not only the CPG sector, but industries across the board. Currently, however, CPG companies are a major perpetuator of the issue, with many products leaning into plastic packaging. Plastic pollution is not only devastating the earth’s oceans and wildlife, but it is also severely problematic for human health.
Grove believes that plastic is not sustainable. On March 10, 2020, Grove Collaborative became the first and only plastic neutral retailer in the world in partnership with Plastic Bank®, and committed to becoming 100% plastic free by 2025 to address the global crisis around single use plastic.
To achieve plastic neutrality, Grove’s owned and third-party brands are currently subject to a plastic offset “tax,” wherein the company calculates the amount of plastic sent to consumers and then compensates Plastic Bank® to collect the equivalent amount of ocean-bound plastic – meaning there is a cost the company is imposing on itself for everything they ship containing plastic, even recycled. Exercising this tax is Grove’s first step towards becoming 100% plastic free, while also setting an example that can translate across industries, such as fashion, beauty and beyond.
Moving forward, the brand’s macrostrategy is inclusive of meeting objectives surrounding product innovation and re-development, industry partnerships and advocacy over the next three years (2020-2022), which will serve as benchmarks towards their larger commitment of becoming 100% plastic free by 2025.
Household essentials are a huge contributor to plastic waste and Grove Collaborative is designing products to replace single-use plastics. This fall, the company is releasing a full line of 100% plastic free cleaning products, leveraging glass and aluminum vessels, as well as a plastic-free laundry vessel format and a plastic-free bar-format personal care line – all of which illustrate that they are taking meaningful steps, quickly, towards their goal and overall mission.
Grove’s plastic-free cleaning line will incorporate sustainable materials to eliminate single-plastic from typical household cleaners. Grove’s cleaning concentrates and glass vessels save over 94% of plastic compared to a single-use alternative.
The Grove Laundry Vessel was designed with a patent-pending auto-measurement feature that eliminates the need to measure detergent, while Grove’s Reusable Laundry Dispenser and detergent pouches enable customers to cut laundry-related plastic waste by 60%.
Seedling is made from 100% responsibly-grown bamboo, creating paper products that are plastic free, fully recyclable and made from 100% recycled materials. Every Seedling purchase also supports reforestation through the Arbor Day Foundation.
Launching this fall, Grove’s new personal care brand: Peach offers waterless, plastic-free and effective plant-based solutions. Each Peach customer can save 4.44 pounds of plastic per year.
While Grove does not have total visibility as to how they will get to zero plastic, the brand knows that bold action is needed to move the CPG industry forward and has created a roadmap of three phases to achieve their 2025 goal.
Phase 1 (currently underway) requires transitioning all possible packaging out of plastic, where solutions exist. If solutions do not currently exist, Grove will use recycled plastic as much as possible.
Phase 2 means exploring solutions that exist, while expanding Grove’s resources and testing to find matches with existing products. Solutions must be compatible with product packaging, performance, and pricing. Consumer behavior change is likely to support this transition.
While Grove has less visibility into Phase 3 of their work, this chapter will be the final stretch of their plastic-free journey. It depends on the creation of new materials, technologies and logistics systems that enable the brand to reach a complete assortment of plastic-free products.
Business:
Over 2 million+ lifetime customers
50% of Grove customers are trying products in natural categories for the first time
Has just under 1000 full-time employees in six locations across the country
From May 2017 to May 2019, Grove Collaborative grew more than 8X
Impact:
Grove will cumulatively save over 1,000,000 pounds of plastic in 2020
Grove planted approximately 165,000 trees in 2019
Grove will plant over 200,000 trees in 2020
See here for our plastic scorecard that tracks our progress towards plastic free
Our Owned Brand Impacts:
As mentioned, these 2020 numbers represent Grove’s baseline* as they work to remove all plastic from products and packaging by 2025.
Grove Collaborative - Flagship: 25%+ plastic-free, on our way to 100% plastic-free
Over 25% (and growing) of Grove’s products are plastic free. Since concerns over COVID-19 began in the US in March of 2020, Grove’s community has purchased 1,507,123* concentrate refills, which have avoided 171,058** pounds of plastic.
Grove’s cleaning concentrates have diverted 325,000 lbs (OR 14 GARBAGE TRUCKS) of plastic from entering landfills (Source: sdchec.gov)
Grove’s aluminum caps will save 9 tons of plastic per year, the equivalent weight of 50 large green sea turtles (Source: conserveturtles.org)
Grove’s Aluminum bottles will save 14 tons of plastic per year, equal to the weight of trash 1 person produces over 13 years (Source: epa.gov)
*Metrics as of 6/30/2020.
**Metrics from 3/01/2020-7/23/2020
