CSR Press Release

Ithaca, NY -- Stuart Hart, widely recognized as one of today's foremost experts in sustainability, and SC Johnson will present their successful Kenya-based pilot of the Base of the Pyramid Protocol™ at the Business for Social Responsibility conference in New York City on Nov. 9.

The Base of the Pyramid, a concept popularized by Stuart Hart and C.K. Prahalad, refers to the four billion people around the world surviving at the lowest economic levels. The Base of the Pyramid Protocol ™ is a unique, ground-breaking business incubation process that enables multinational corporations to generate new business opportunities in partnership with Base of the Pyramid communities. It was launched in 2004 as a collaborative venture between Cornell University, the University of Michigan, the World Resources Institute, and The Johnson Foundation with the financial support of SC Johnson, DuPont, Tetra Pak, and Hewlett-Packard.

"The Base of the Pyramid Protocol™ is a model for business co-creation that marries a multinational corporation's capabilities, resources, and technologies with those of Base of the Pyramid communities," said Stuart Hart, Samuel C. Johnson Chair of Sustainable Global Enterprise. Hart is founder of the Johnson School's Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise and the Base of the Pyramid Learning Lab™. "The result is private enterprise embedded in the local cultural infrastructure that delivers sustainable new products and services that generate value for all partners. SC Johnson's forward-thinking decision to test the Base of the Pyramid Protocol ™ is consistent with the company's commitment to improving the communities and individuals touched by its business. The success of the pilot is a testament to SC Johnson's drive to add value to consumers in new markets."

SC Johnson field tested the Base of the Pyramid Protocol™ in the summer of 2005 by supporting a six-person team comprised of students and graduates from Cornell University, the University of Michigan and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Led by Erik Simanis, a Johnson School PhD candidate, the team's efforts in Kibera, Nairobi, led to the establishment of a business linking SC Johnson, Carolina for Kibera (a Kibera-based NGO), and the Coalition of Young Entrepreneurs, local youth groups which already run trash collection, recycling and composting businesses. The new Community Cleaning Services creates value for both the company and the youth groups by embedding SC Johnson products as part of a diversified and holistic business.

"Furthering SC Johnson's long-standing commitment to advancing social progress, we went to Kibera to form a mutually-beneficial partnership with the community where we shared skills and are now part of a cross-sector partnership that is helping people build value for themselves and in their community," said Scott Johnson, Vice President, Global Environment and Safety Actions for SC Johnson. "At SC Johnson, we believe that prosperity and responsibility can co-exist. Our work at the Base of the Pyramid reinforces that we can do what's right for the business and what's right for the people around us."

Guided by the Base of the Pyramid™ protocol, the Kibera business venture, Community Cleaning Services, is run by the Coalition of Young Entrepreneurs and offers a variety of cleaning services in three major slums of Nairobi: Kibera, Mathare, and Mitumba. Services offered include home maintenance and cleaning, take-away rug cleaning and pest control. Many of the services use SC Johnson products and SC Johnson has been instrumental in providing business-related training from accounting and marketing to integrated pest management techniques. In the future, the Coalition of Young Entrepreneurs will partner with other vendors to offer services that fall outside the realm of the Johnson family of products.

The Johnson School launched a second Base of the Pyramid Protocol™ project in partnership with DuPont's Solae subsidiary in Andhra Pradesh, India earlier this year. The project has successfully completed business concept co-generation and has begun work on the business model development phase in both a slum and rural village where the project took place.

About the Johnson School

Founded in 1946, the Johnson School is Cornell University's graduate school of management. Consistently ranked as one of the top graduate schools of business, the Johnson School builds upon Cornell's depth and breadth of distinguished research and teaching, and its vast, worldwide network of alumni, faculty, and colleagues. The school's "performance learning" approach offers students defined frameworks and analytical tools, combined with expert feedback to solve real problems in real organizations. Deliberately small and extremely selective, the Johnson School maintains an intense, collaborative community, where students develop teamwork and networking skills that foster innovation and deliver results. Programs include one- and two-year MBA degrees, an Executive MBA and the Boardroom Executive MBA, which offers interactive videoconferencing sessions across the U.S. and Canada. For more about the Johnson School please visit: www.johnson.cornell.edu

About SC Johnson

SC Johnson is a family-owned and -managed business dedicated to innovative, high-quality products, excellence in the workplace and a long-term commitment to the environment and the communities in which it operates. Based in the USA, the company is one of the world's leading manufacturers of household cleaning products and products for home storage, air care, personal care and insect control. It markets such well-known brands as EDGE®, GLADE®, OFF!®, PLEDGE®, RAID®, SCRUBBING BUBBLES®, SHOUT®, WINDEX® and ZIPLOC® in the U.S. and beyond, with brands marketed outside the U.S. including AUTAN®, BAYGON®, BRISE®, ECHO®, KABIKILLER®, KLEAR®, and MR. MUSCLE®. The 120-year old company, with $7 billion in sales, employs approximately 12,000 people globally and sells products in more than 110 countries.

For more information, please visit www.scjohnson.com

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