Forty-two years ago, SC Johnson shocked the chemical industry and set new heights for environmental responsibility, as it was the first company to protect the Earth’s ozone layer by banning chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) from all its aerosol products worldwide.
In 1975, the company’s pre-emptive and voluntary action came more than a decade before the 1987 Montreal Protocol treaty designed to reduce the production and use of chemicals that contribute to the depletion of the ozone layer.
SC Johnson took this bold step motivated by early, yet not widely accepted, scientific research that suggested CFCs might harm the Earth’s ozone layer.