Sustainability assessment in the German detergent industry: from stakeholder involvement to sustainability indicators

Since the early years of environmentalism, the detergent industry has been under pressure from NGOs and consumers. While the path towards an integrated product policy has been set, further developments towards sustainability are necessary. In a project conducted by the University of Oldenburg in cooperation with the German Detergent Manufacturers Association (IKW), future potentials for sustainable development were investigated. From this, a set of indicators was developed. This paper will review the project methodology, where a stakeholder assessment plays a key role, and present some findings. Stakeholder interviews and two workshops allowed discovery of the central issues to be tackled by the German detergent industry. The environmental product life‐cycle and stakeholder concept provide the theoretical basis for the so called sustainability matrices, one each for the environmental, economic and social dimensions. These matrices were used to facilitate discussions regarding relevant sustainability issues and indicators.