OUR COMMITMENT TO RESPONSIBILITY & SUSTAINABILITY

We began in 1846 as a baking soda business. Today, we are a top-tier Consumer Products Company with a large portfolio of brands that consumers love, especially the ARM & HAMMER® brand.

We have a rich heritage of commitment to people and have long regarded ourselves as a friend of the environment. Over 100 years ago, we began using recycled materials in our cartons. We were the first U.S. manufacturer to remove phosphates from laundry detergent, and one of the few corporate sponsors of the inaugural Earth Day in 1970.

Church & Dwighters are goal-oriented people. To create a compass for our Sustainability program, we have established aggressive goals for ourselves. Our environmental, social and governance efforts are directed towards improving the Sustainability profile of our operations and products, positively impacting our employees and the communities in which we operate and minimizing the environmental impact of our expanding global operations.

We are actively working towards increasing the use of renewable energy at our facilities; reducing water usage, greenhouse gas emissions, and solid waste to landfills; using environmentally responsible packaging; and improving our suppliers’ environmental practices. In 2023, we continued to procure 100% of our operations' global electricity from renewable sources, inclusive of renewable energy credits.

For the second year in a row, we achieved carbon neutrality for our ARM & HAMMER Baking Soda by measuring the product's carbon footprint and reducing it to zero through verified carbon offsets and internal reductions in line with The CarbonNeutral Protocol. We completed Phase 2 of our laundry product concentration and compaction efforts to minimize water and packaging size in line with our overall goals to reduce water use and packaging. And we substantially reduced the volume of palm oil derivative raw materials.

In 2022, our application to the Science Based Targets Initiative was approved. These targets take into account the level of carbon reduction needed to meet the goals set forth in the Paris Agreement. In 2023, our absolute direct emissions from our operated facilities (Scope 1), indirect emissions from our operated facilities, e.g., electricity and steam purchases (Scope 2) and emissions associated with transport of our finished products to our first point of customer contact (in the U.S. and Canada) and corporate business travel (targeted Scope 3) decreased approximately 4% versus 2022.

As we prioritize actions in support of our science-based targets, we continue our progress towards our primary near-term climate-related goal to achieve carbon neutrality for global operations owned and controlled by us by the end of 2025 through greenhouse gas emissions reduction programs, green electricity renewable energy credits, and purchased carbon credits. In 2023, more than 94% of our targeted greenhouse gas emissions were either offset through carbon credits or reduced through renewable energy credits (up from 92% in 2022).

We are committed to providing the world’s consumers with high quality products and ingredients in compliance with all safety and regulatory expectations. Our Chemicals of Concern Committee developed a master list of Chemicals of Concern for humans and the environment derived from global regulations, scientific reviews by authoritative bodies, and retailer restricted substance lists. Today, none of the chemicals on our master list are intentionally added to any of our formulations.

We are continuing to pursue our strategy to ensure that our plastic packaging has minimal impact on the environment by reducing plastic from our packaging wherever it is practical, including: seeking non-plastic alternatives and reducing plastic weight where possible; increasing plastic recyclability and circularity; and by increasing the amount of post-consumer recycled plastic in our packaging. Our goal is to increase post-consumer recycled plastic to a minimum of 25% average across all global plastic packaging by the end of 2025. Over 18.1% of our plastic packaging is post-consumer recycled content (up from 17% in 2022).

With more than 5,500 employees across more than 50 locations around the world, the safety and wellness of our employees have been and continue to be our top priorities. We are dedicated to maintaining a culture of belonging at Church & Dwight. In 2023, our employees launched Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) for military veterans, Black employees, and women. These Company-supported, employee-run groups, which are open to all employees, contribute to our goal of building and maintaining a diverse and inclusive workplace, and are intended to create safe, inclusive environments where all global employees feel connected, valued and inspired.

We embrace the diversity of our employees and believe a diverse and inclusive workforce fosters innovation and cultivates an environment filled with unique perspectives, talents and experiences. Diversity is a strength and makes us better. In 2023, we had diverse candidate slates and interview panels for almost all (95%) new hires at our corporate locations, up from 70% in 2022. Today, women make up 42.5% of our total managers (an increase of 0.8% over 2022) and in the U.S. minorities comprise 25.4% of our management positions (an increase of 2.8% from 2022).

We take great pride in fostering an enduring culture of doing well by doing good. By focusing on making meaningful contributions, each of us can create a stronger, more resilient company while making a positive impact on the world. In 2023, we contributed approximately $20 million to our communities, which includes the retail value of product donations, donations to local food banks, hunger relief, and charitable donations. We matched, dollar for dollar, donations our employees made to the Church & Dwight Employee Giving Fund (EGF), an employee-run giving program that primarily supports charitable organizations where our employees work and live. The EGF contributed $1.3 million to 221 deserving community organizations through annual grants, disaster relief, and other monetary support. Given the scale of the humanitarian crisis in and around Ukraine and the Middle East, the EGF expanded its reach and managed employee donations to the American Red Cross for international relief efforts, with Church & Dwight matching employee contributions. The Church & Dwight Philanthropic Foundation (the “Foundation”) granted seven organizations $875,000 in the aggregate. Established in 2020, the Foundation is administered by our employees and focused on helping to create equitable and inclusive opportunities and advancing environmental preservation.

We earned public recognition for our efforts in 2023, including being listed as one of Forbes: America’s Best Midsize Employers, Newsweek: America’s Most Responsible and America’s Greenest Companies, the EPA’s Green Power Partnership Top 100, The 2023 Wall Street Journal Management Top 250, and in the FTSE4Good Index Series.

While we have made significant progress, we missed some of our goals. In 2023, we achieved a 4% reduction in global process water and/or wastewater normalized to production against our overall annual goal of 10%. Waste at our facilities increased 5% compared to 2022, missing our 10% annual reduction goal. Likewise, we fell short of our 10% reduction targets for GHG (which decreased 4% compared to 2022) and energy (which increased 1% compared to 2022). While the number of women at the executive level increased by 10% over 2022, the number of women in senior management positions declined by 0.9% compared to 2022.

We have a clear roadmap to meet our Sustainability goals and address our shortcomings, and I am confident that we will become an even stronger and more sustainable company in the years ahead.

Please read this Report to see the progress we have made over the past year to make Church & Dwight a better company.

Matthew T. Farrell
President and Chief Executive Officer