Cleaning up cleaning: policy and stakeholder interventions to put household formulations

To align with climate targets while also reducing exposure to volatile petrochemical prices linked to the cost of oil, the FMCG sector will need to shift to sustainable sources of carbon in order to make the formulations for the cleaning products that consumers buy. [...] These hidden emissions have so far ‘slipped under the radar’ (Lim, 2022) and are linked to the life cycle of the carbon that is embedded within the chemical structures of the formulation. [...] This is accompanied by discussion of the need for a sector-wide transition, the global relevance of such a transition, the benefits of a coordinated response, and finally, a note on the opportunity for job creation that a transition to sustainable feedstocks in the formulations sector could offer. [...] The importance of formulations in government environmental commitments The reduction in emissions of the formulations sector is of strategic importance to governments, as it tends to align with the environmental aims set out in both national legislation and international agreements such as the Paris Agreement. [...] The ineffectiveness of the current EU-ETS application to the chemicals industry offers evidence that the carbon prices for the chemicals sector must be addressed.