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Oates working towards a sustainable environment. 

Our products help our customers to clean sustainably

As the leader of cleaning solutions in Australia, we provide more than just products and solutions to keep your sites and surfaces hygienically clean. Our environmental and social responsibilities are core to our Freudenberg guiding principles and have influence over the design and development of our products.

For many years the family-owned Freudenberg Group have invested significant resources and efforts into the responsible handling of materials, waste, energy, emissions and water across the globe. Our internal efforts guide us to develop sustainable cleaning solutions that benefit both our customers and our planet. 

Our sustainable cleaning solutions make the difference

Our customers can depend on Oates products to provide the best cleaning performance with validated bacteria/ virus removal and ergonomic, robust designs. We will use our global resources to continue providing confidence in our products and additional assurance that the production and usage of our sustainable cleaning solutions have a reduced impact on the environment and global resources throughout the product life cycle.

This is why our sustainable cleaning solutions is focussed on minimising our footprint whilst reducing your handprint. 

A pair of bare feet standing on grass and one hand grabbing the grass to illustrate the impact of sustainable cleaning solutions on the environment.

Small ecological footprints and large handprints

At Oates, we measure our sustainability efforts in two scopes – by minimising our footprint and maximising our handprint. 

Bare feet standing on green and wealthy grass to symbolize the minimization of the ecological footprint.

The footprint relates to the resources used by raw materials, manufacturing, transportation and disposal/ recycling of our products and should be as small as possible. For example, our r-MicroLife cloths use recycled materials and are certified with Nordic Swan label. 

A hand grabbing green grass to illustrate the impact of sustainable cleaning solutions on the product handprint.

The handprint relates to the resources needed during daily usage of our products, by reducing chemical and water consumption and to develop durable products with a maximised product life. Our r-MicroLife is an excellent example, which encompasses all those aspects: less chemicals, less water needed, and superior high laundry durability. 

Since we love it clean, everywhere

The heart-shaped “Love It Clean” label which highlights the most sustainable product choices.

We use our „Love It Clean“ label to highlight the most sustainable product choices. This label helps our customers to follow our ambitions for reducing waste, and our commitment to increase recycling and safety.

Making our economy sustainable is not a coincidence, but the direct result of actions we take – as companies and customers. Our sustainable cleaning solutions help save waste, while delivering excellent product performance. In recent years we continuously increased use of recycled plastics. Nearly all our plastic packaging is recyclable. But we have a responsibility to continuously improve and take action on where we can make a difference. That is why we have founded our internal and external sustainability initiative “Love It Clean”.

As a part of our initiative, Freudenberg Home and Cleaning Solutions have committed to ambitious sustainability targets for 2025.

We are proud to announce that we are a signatory of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy Global Commitment. As such we

  • commit to review 100% of all products globally and eliminate problematic or unnecessary packaging by 2025.
  • strive to achieve 100 percent of all packaging to be recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025.
  • aim to achieve 50% recycled content across all packaging and 25% recycled content in plastic packaging in 2025
  • will increase the amount of recycled material of our solid plastic products from currently 46 percent to 50 percent by 2025
  • will explore options to further change from single to multi-use containers in warehouse/factory logistics and B2B transportation.