What is product stewardship?

Companies are facing increasing pressure to take responsibility for the entire life cycle of their products from their development and marketing, to their use and disposal.

This approach examines how products can impact society or the environment throughout their life cycles. It can encourage companies to be more innovative in the way they produce, package and promote their goods and services.  

However, the move toward greater product stewardship raises a number of questions: can a company be held fully responsible for the way a customer uses its products? And for the way a customer disposes of them? Attributing responsibility is particularly complicated for products that ‘fuel’ another process, such as food and petrol.  

Companies that fail to take a responsible approach to product stewardship not only put their customers, the community and the environment at risk, they also endanger their reputations and could face fines and compensation.

Find out about our approach to product stewardship in the areas of fuels and crop protection legacies.