Household and Personal Care products: Nature-related impacts and dependencies

17 July 2025

Household and Personal Care products help us stay clean, support health, and keep us looking and smelling fresh. But their production often comes at a cost to nature.

In the face of a biodiversity and planetary health crisis, companies in this sector must acknowledge their environmental impact and commit to transforming how they interact with ecosystems, biodiversity, and natural resources.

In this article, Sustainability Advisor Sophie Schlachter explores the sector’s nature-related impacts and dependencies – and the opportunities to reduce negative environmental impact across operations and supply chains.

Key takeaways:

  • Household & Personal Care (HPC) products rely heavily on natural resources like freshwater and plant-based feedstocks
  • Their production contributes to biodiversity loss, pollution, and ecosystem degradation across global supply chains
  • Water stewardship, sustainable sourcing, and circular design are critical for reducing environmental harm
  • Zooss’s Sustainable Business Planning approach helps companies navigate complex data and act decisively to improve sustainability

Impacts on nature from operations and supply chains

Like many manufacturing sectors, impacts on nature in the Household and Personal Care sector stem from their own operations and – to a larger extent – their supply chains. Key impacts for this sector are:

  • Water and other resource use – huge volumes of water are utilised across the whole value chain, negatively impacting ecosystems. Often, even water returned to the ecosystem after being used is of a lower quality than what was extracted.
  • Land use change – the mining and agricultural activities associated with feedstock production/extraction can result in land conversion, deforestation and soil degradation. This degrades ecosystems, threatens species, and decreases soil fertility.
  • Pollution – during production, toxic chemicals can pollute the atmosphere, land and water. In the use phase, waste streams and oceans can be polluted by plastic packaging and microplastics, harming animal and human species alike.

Manufacturers are heavily dependent on nature

While Household and Personal Care products can look far removed from anything you find in nature, in reality they are strongly dependent on the resources and ecosystem services that nature provides. In particular, they are dependent on;

  • Freshwater as an important resource for production, processing of feedstocks, extracting raw materials, and diluting waste streams. Water scarcity poses a very real risk to the sector.
  • Biomass stocks such as vegetable oils and plant extracts are heavily relied on by this sector. Biodiversity loss and degraded farmland threaten stability and growth.

Reducing negative environmental impact from manufacturing

Producing Household and Personal Care products without considering the impact on nature really is a “shoot yourself in the foot” scenario. To rapidly reduce the negative impact of this sector on the environment, companies should act now to:

  • Improve water stewardship throughout the value chain by assessing water-related risks through the supply chain, completing a full water audit, upgrading direct manufacturing operations, recycling wastewater, and restoring water basins.
  • Source responsibly and use sustainable materials by incorporating nature-related considerations into procurement criteria. Work with suppliers to minimise water use, protect against deforestation, promote regenerative agriculture and replace fossil-based feedstocks with renewable feedstocks.
  • Expand circularity by developing new business models that avoid single-use items, foster value-chain partner collaboration, and educate consumers on product use and re-use.
  • Support nature conservation and restoration through investment in responsible business practices and Nature-based Solutions (NbS), and by engaging in policy advocacy in local and regional jurisdictions across the supply chain.

How Zooss Consulting can help

Across product ranges, supply chains, retail partners and consumers, there is a wide net for manufacturers to cast in order to assess and improve their impact on nature.

Zooss Consulting has pioneered a new approach to business planning. By joining the dots between financial, environmental and social data, we empower coordinated action and enable more sustainable business for our customers.

We call our approach Sustainable Business Planning – and it has the power to deliver better outcomes for organisations, people, and our planet.

Find out more

About the author – Sophie Schlachter, Sustainability Advisor

Sophie holds a Master of Sustainability from the University of Sydney and has worked across regenerative agriculture and waste management sectors, including for OzHarvest and the Taronga Zoo Conservation Society. Sophie is experienced in business and sustainability analytics, and is passionate about enabling sustainable business that balances profit with positive environmental and social outcomes.

Better Planning. Better Planet.

 

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