Colgate-Palmolive – Yu Yu – 2025

Summary

Yu Yu advanced Colgate’s sustainability goals by digitizing resource management and evaluating new renewable energy pathways.

Goals

To support its 2040 net-zero goal, Colgate-Palmolive’s Guangzhou plant is transitioning from traditional resource management to a more data-driven approach. The facility recently deployed a new digital energy management platform but lacked a systematic process to leverage its capabilities or a similar framework for its complex, manually-recorded water system. Colgate enlisted EDF Climate Corps fellow Yu Yu to operationalize the new energy platform, build a digital-ready framework for water management, and explore new renewable energy pathways.

Solutions

Yu Yu advanced Colgate’s objectives through a three-part approach. First, he applied the Schneider EMS+ platform to analyze the factory’s electricity consumption, developing a systematic drill-down process to transform raw data into actionable insights for identifying energy waste. Second, to address the inefficient manual water tracking, Yu created the factory’s first digital-ready water management framework by mapping the entire system and designing a multi-tiered KPI structure. Finally, he conducted a feasibility study on on-site wind energy, evaluating technical solutions against the factory?s specific conditions.

Potential Impact

The frameworks Yu developed provide Colgate with a clear roadmap for continuous improvement in energy and water management, enabling future savings and more efficient operations. The digitalization of the water system, once implemented, will unlock significant conservation potential by providing real-time data for the first time. Furthermore, the wind energy study delivered a definitive, data-driven conclusion that allows the company to avoid an impractical investment and instead focus resources more effectively on its proven solar PV program, supporting its long-term decarbonization strategy.