Creating Shared Value: A Strategy For Sustainable Business

Diversey’s approach to sustainability is to use environmental stewardship and social responsibility to drive sustainable livelihood. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is part of our sustainability platform and guides our overall commitment to improving people’s lives. Drilling down further in CSR, we also have programs that create shared value (CSV). Unlike some CSR efforts, CSV is not simply philanthropy. CSV represents true partnerships with our customers to address global challenges and improve lives in the communities where we operate.

The United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs) identify seventeen key challenges global society must address. Our CSV programs are intended to help transform our industry and contribute to progress on the SDGs. The scale of the problems requires partnerships with organizations with both global reach and local ambition. Initiatives such as Soap For Hope™ and Linens For Life™ demonstrate the power of collaboration to produce meaningful, wide-reaching positive results.

Soap For Hope™

More than 2.5 billion people worldwide lack proper sanitation. Meanwhile, a typical 400-room hotel generates 3.5 tons of solid soap waste every year. The Soap for Hope program collaborates with our hotel customers around the world to salvage used soap slivers and sanitize and recycle them into new soap bars for communities in need. The initiative reduces waste that would otherwise end up in landfills, creates livelihood opportunities and improves lives by providing hygiene solutions to people who typically don’t have access to soap.

Environmental stewardship and social responsibility shouldn’t be viewed as a cost to the business. They create exciting opportunities for making a positive global impact. At Diversey, we forge meaningful partnerships to transform waste into resources that benefit those in need

Since its launch in 2013, Soap For Hope has collected 6,613 metric tons of soap waste from over 800 partner hotels and created nearly 55.4 million bars of new soap. Annually, Soap For Hope benefits more than a million people from 52 countries in over 200 cities. These numbers continue to grow as the program reaches new communities. 

Linens For Life™

Annually, about 21.5 million people are forcibly displaced from their homes due to natural disasters, often leaving them without access to clothes or bedding. Diversey’s Linens For Life program was created to assist people displaced by these disasters and reduce linen waste. Linens discarded by hotels are often just discarded as useless. Instead of those linens becoming a source of waste, Linens For Life captures them as a resource. Families residing in refugee camps can earn a small livelihood by converting retired hotel linens into new, useful items. Communities receive basic training on hand sewing and using sewing machines donated by Diversey and then selling the items.

Since 2011, Diversey has collected nearly 400 tons of linen from hotels for disaster relief and livelihood generation. This resulted in a water saving of 1,900 million L (enough to fill 760 Olympic-sized swimming pools) and a CO2 emissions saving of 4800,000 tonnes (equivalent to not burning 2,043,864 L of petrol). Linens For Life is also consistently expanding to new communities to benefit more needy people.

A Bigger Impact

Environmental stewardship and social responsibility shouldn’t be viewed as a cost to the business. They create exciting opportunities for making a positive global impact. At Diversey, we forge meaningful partnerships to transform waste into resources that benefit those in need. Every opportunity for partnership brings us closer to shaping worthwhile change and a more sustainable future.