Open Innovation Submission Portal

Colgate Open Innovation Challenge: Sustainable Alternatives for Bar Soap Ingredients

Request Number: 074839 | Author: Colgate-Palmolive

Description

Colgate-Palmolive is interested in identifying sustainable, cost-effective, alternative materials for key bar soap ingredients such as Palm Oil, Palm Stearin, Palm Kernel Oil, Palm Kernel Olein and Tallow.

Background

The need for alternative materials has been accelerated by the reduced availability and subsequent rising prices of raw materials, along with severe deforestation as rising demand for Palm oil leads to new plantations overtaking rainforests and natural habitats.

Key Success Criteria

Solutions should be:

Sustainably sourced alternatives
Solutions must be safe for consumer use
Solutions must be able to achieve REACH & FDA registration compliance (there is a preference for REACH certified solutions, though Colgate-Palmolive is open to those undergoing registration or likely to be certified in the future)
Reasonable cost-profile relative to current raw materials.
Desired shelf-life >2 years preferred
Potential to be scaled in Colgate-Palmolive key manufacturing regions including plants in Americas (Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico), APAC (Thailand), Europe (Turkey) and Africa (South Africa) across contract manufacturers in Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Papua New Guinea (PNG).

Possible Approaches

Potential sources for alternative sustainable materials may include but are not limited to:

Circular economy waste sources with high fatty acid production (e.g. mango seeds, food waste, vegetable waste, coffee waste)
Algae (e.g. sargassum)
Natural plants (e.g. sources of saponins)
Alternative oils (e.g. algae oils, yeast oils)
Microorganisms
Biochemistry solutions and more

Development Stage

Colgate-Palmolive is open to evaluating a range of sustainable sources and is open to short-term (implementation available in 2022), medium-term (2-4 years), and long-term solutions (5+ years). Colgate-Palmolive is interested in evaluating samples of the most promising solutions at Lab-scale, Pilot-scale, and Large-scale Manufacturing.

Preferred Collaboration types

Open to a variety of partnership avenues including Joint Development Agreements and licensing

Colgate-Palmolive Open Innovation Portal

The Colgate-Palmolive open innovation submission portal is where you can submit your ideas and innovations to our strategic challenges. yet2 manages the portal and will serve as a consistent point of contact for you during the submission process. All the information you provide in these initial stages should be publicly available and imposes no obligation of confidentiality for Colgate or any of its brands. If your unique idea or innovation passes our screening criteria, your details will be passed on to the appropriate team for further detailed, internal review. If we decide to move forward with your submission, we will ask you to sign a separate, further agreement with us so that any confidential information that is subsequently shared is protected.

Managed by