Companies ask their customers to help them reduce their emissions

Take shorter showers, do laundry in cooler temperatures, and turn off the faucet while brushing your teeth.

These are messages that the world’s largest manufacturers of shampoo, detergent and toothpaste have been pushing when trying to reduce the carbon emissions associated with the use of their products.

While consumer goods companies have touted their success in reducing emissions in offices and factories, they are struggling to reduce what they say is the biggest source of emissions associated with their products: l use by consumers.

Slow progress threatens companies’ ability to meet their voluntary global emission reduction targets and risks undermining the broader environmental commitments that are increasingly part of how they sell to buyers, investors and employees potentials.

Companies such as Unilever PLC, L’Oréal SA and Colgate-Palmolive Co. have set global targets to reduce consumer emissions, while others including Procter & Gamble Co. and Right Guard deodorant owner Henkel AG & Co., focused only on categories.