Method: Business Case Study

Method was built on a simple idea: sustainable cleaning products did not have to look boring.

Founded in 2000 by Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan, Method combined plant-based formulas with distinctive packaging, bold colors, and scents designed to make everyday cleaning products feel more like objects people wanted to keep out on the counter.

That approach helped Method become one of the most recognizable eco-friendly consumer brands of the 2000s. The company merged with Ecover in 2012 and was acquired by SC Johnson in 2017. Today, Method still sells home care, hand wash, and body products, and continues to operate its highly visible manufacturing facility on Chicago’s South Side.

But the company’s story became more complicated after acquisition.

Method’s current sustainability messaging openly acknowledges both progress and unfinished work, including its relationship with parent company SC Johnson. At the same time, the brand has faced questions around B Corp recertification, animal testing policies at the parent-company level, and legal challenges tied to product claims.

That makes Method a useful case study in what happens when a mission-driven brand grows up, changes ownership, and becomes part of a much larger consumer products company.

The central question is no longer whether Method helped change the category. It did. The more interesting question is how much of its original sustainability ambition has survived, and how that ambition is expressed inside a global corporate structure.

Company Background & History

Founding story

Method was founded by Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan with a shared belief that environmentally preferable cleaning products did not have to feel dull or overly utilitarian.

Lowry brought an environmental science perspective and wanted to rethink the ingredients used in conventional household cleaners. Ryan, with a background in branding, focused on making sustainable products visually appealing and enjoyable to use.

That combination shaped Method from the beginning: cleaner formulations, distinctive scents, and bottles designed to be left out rather than hidden under the sink.

The approach quickly gained traction. By 2006, Method ranked seventh on the Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. Its growth was helped by expansion into mass retail, where strong packaging and brand design helped the company stand out from other natural cleaning products.

Timeline of major milestones

• 2000–2001: Method founded in San Francisco by Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan.

• 2006: Inc. 500 recognition; national brand momentum.

• 2012: Combination with Belgian green cleaner Ecover / People Against Dirty; contemporary reports put Method over $100 million in revenue and the combined group “north of $300 million.”

• 2013: Method reincorporates as a public benefit corporation; B Corp era of independent accountability.

• 2015 era: Southside Soapbox factory in Chicago’s Pullman neighborhood—LEED Platinum manufacturing as brand theater and operations.

• 2017: SC Johnson agrees to acquire Method and Ecover (announced 14 September 2017; close later that year).

• 2018–: Plastic Bank partnership via SC Johnson for recovered coastal plastic collection in Southeast Asia and Brazil.

• 2021: Class-action settlement related to “non-toxic” / “natural” marketing claims (~$2.25 million reported).

• 2020s: Refill and concentrate systems; aluminum reuse bottles; enzyme dish soap; brand states it will not recertify as a B Corp.

Leadership and ownership

After Method combined with Ecover in 2012, the founders remained involved in the business. Adam Lowry continued to focus on sustainability, while Eric Ryan stayed closely connected to brand and design.

In 2017, SC Johnson acquired Method and Ecover, bringing both brands into the privately held consumer products company behind Windex, Pledge, Glade, Raid, and other household names. The purchase price was not publicly disclosed.

The acquisition ended Method’s independence, but much of the brand identity remained intact. Its lowercase name, bright colors, distinctive packaging, and playful tone continued under SC Johnson ownership.

The strategic question since then has been how Method’s sustainability mission fits within a much larger conventional household-products portfolio.

Industry & Market Analysis

Household cleaning is a large, highly competitive consumer category dominated by companies such as Clorox, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Reckitt, and SC Johnson.

Within that market, demand for plant-based and environmentally positioned products has grown as consumers pay more attention to ingredient safety, plastic waste, indoor air quality, and environmental impact. Method differentiated itself by targeting shoppers who wanted greener products without sacrificing design, scent, or performance.

That positioning set it apart from brands such as Seventh Generation, which built its early reputation around environmental values, and newer companies like Blueland, which focus heavily on refill systems and reduced packaging.

Current category trends include stronger demand for attractive packaging, refillable formats, and greater use of post-consumer recycled plastic. At the same time, brands face pressure to match the cleaning performance of conventional products while addressing concerns around sourcing, packaging, and greenwashing.

Method’s own sustainability messaging reflects that complexity. The company now acknowledges that plant-based ingredients are not automatically more sustainable, especially when sourcing issues such as palm-related deforestation are taken into account.

Competitive Landscape

• Seventh Generation (Unilever): Closest historical peer; more “natural catalog” heritage, less design-forward.

• Mrs. Meyer’s / Ecover: Adjacent scent-and-story brands; Ecover is a sister brand under the same owner.

• Blueland, Grove Co., Dropps: Tablet, concentrate, and DTC refill models that treat plastic as the enemy more aggressively than Method’s PCR bottles.

• Conventional SC Johnson and Clorox SKUs: Same parent or same shelf; Method must not cannibalize by being merely “Windex in a prettier bottle.”

• Private label naturals: Target, Whole Foods 365, and others compress price.

SWOT analysis

• Strengths: Distinctive design language, factory story, SC Johnson distribution and plastic programs, refill SKUs, Leaping Bunny.

• Weaknesses: Parent-company animal-testing policies attract boycotts; loss of B Corp mark; past marketing-claim settlement; less radical packaging than tablet competitors.

• Opportunities: Concentrates and aluminum reuse; hygiene-bank partnerships; enzyme performance claims that compete on clean, not just ethics.

• Threats: Greenwashing regulation, tablet disruptors, and shoppers who treat any SC Johnson brand as off-limits.

Business Model & Revenue Streams

Method is a consumer products brand sold primarily through grocery, mass retail, drugstores, and e-commerce. Its revenue comes from product sales across home care, hand care, and personal care.

SC Johnson does not disclose Method revenue separately. The last widely cited scale figures date to around 2012, when Method was reported at roughly $100 million in annual sales and the combined Method-Ecover business exceeded $300 million.

Method’s economic model is built around premium branding and strong shelf appeal. Distinctive packaging allows the brand to command higher prices than many conventional cleaners while competing for mass-market volume.

Refills are also part of the model. Larger refill packs and concentrate systems can reduce packaging per use and potentially improve margins, but only if customers repeatedly reuse the original container.

Product Offerings

Method sells a broad range of household and personal care products, including:

• Hand wash

• Dish soap

• All-purpose cleaners

• Laundry products

• Body wash

• Shampoo

• Seasonal and limited-edition scents

The brand also markets ingredient and packaging improvements, including formulas made without certain chemicals, cruelty-free certification on Method-branded products, and recycled plastic packaging across parts of the portfolio.

Its refill strategy includes both traditional larger-format refills and newer concentrate systems designed for reusable aluminum bottles.

Design remains central to the product strategy. Method’s advantage has never been austerity. It built its brand by making sustainable products visually appealing enough to compete with mainstream consumer brands.

Go-to-Market & Marketing Strategy

Method’s brand voice is playful, design-forward, and sensory. That identity has largely remained intact under SC Johnson ownership.

Retail distribution is the core channel. Method originally stood out by bringing environmentally positioned cleaning products into mainstream stores rather than limiting them to natural and specialty retailers.

SC Johnson gives Method additional scale through established retailer relationships, distribution, and merchandising infrastructure. The challenge is maintaining enough brand distinction that Method does not become simply a premium-priced alternative within a conventional household portfolio.

Marketing continues to emphasize design, scent, performance, and seasonal innovation. New formulations, limited-edition products, and personal care extensions help keep the brand relevant beyond its original eco-cleaning positioning.

Method has also supported social initiatives such as Simply the Basics and hygiene access programs, connecting the brand to broader community needs around personal care and essential products.

Its original marketing insight remains important: Method did not ask consumers to become environmental advocates before buying. It made the product desirable first, then made sustainability part of the value proposition.

That approach helped Method move sustainable cleaning into the mainstream and ultimately made the brand attractive to a much larger consumer products company.

Impact Strategy

Transparency as the Current Thesis

Method’s current sustainability strategy places greater emphasis on transparency than on sweeping environmental claims.

The company highlights initiatives and certifications related to recycled plastic, green building, cruelty-free products, responsible forestry, circular packaging, and more sustainable sourcing. It also openly acknowledges areas where previous assumptions have proven more complicated, including the environmental challenges associated with some palm-derived ingredients.

Method now explicitly references its relationship with parent company SC Johnson in its sustainability messaging rather than presenting itself as an entirely independent challenger brand.

That creates a different sustainability story than the one Method told during its early years.

The original Method positioned itself as an alternative to conventional household products. Today, Method operates from inside one of the world’s largest household products companies and is trying to improve its environmental performance within that structure.

That tension is central to the brand’s current impact strategy. Method still has recognizable sustainability programs, packaging innovations, and product standards, but its environmental credibility is now connected to questions about the practices of its parent company as well.

For consumers, transparency becomes part of the value proposition. Rather than claiming perfection, Method increasingly presents sustainability as an ongoing process with measurable progress and unresolved tradeoffs.

Southside Soapbox

Method’s Southside Soapbox factory in Chicago’s Pullman neighborhood is one of the clearest examples of the brand’s sustainability strategy in practice.

The LEED Platinum facility was designed to combine manufacturing with environmental and community goals. Early coverage highlighted renewable energy, water savings, biodiesel transportation, local hiring, and a large rooftop farm developed with community partners.

For Method’s founders, the factory helped prove that environmentally positioned cleaning products could be manufactured domestically at scale. After the SC Johnson acquisition, it also became one of the most visible assets that still reflects Method’s original identity.

The factory itself functions as part of the brand. Its green roof, renewable energy features, and distinctive design make sustainability tangible in a way that packaging claims alone cannot.

Method says many of its North American home-care products are still produced in Pullman, while other products are made through manufacturing partners in the U.S. and Canada. Those arrangements should be separated from the factory’s LEED Platinum status rather than treated as one company-wide manufacturing standard.

The newer aluminum refill system follows a similar logic. Customers keep a reusable bottle, add concentrate and water, and reduce the need for single-use packaging. Method says each refill can save more than 96% of the plastic used in its comparable disposable bottles.

The challenge is behavioral. Reuse only works if customers continue buying concentrates and refilling the bottle. Design can encourage the first purchase, but price, convenience, and retail availability determine whether the habit lasts.

Plastic and Circular Design

Method has also increased its use of recycled plastic across parts of its packaging.

The company has used recovered coastal plastic collected near waterways through Plastic Bank programs in countries including Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Brazil. SC Johnson has reported supporting hundreds of Plastic Bank collection locations since 2018.

This helps create demand for recovered plastic and supports collection infrastructure, but it is still a recycling strategy rather than a full reuse model.

That distinction matters. Competitors built around tablets and concentrates argue that the best way to reduce packaging is to eliminate more of it entirely. Method’s approach is more incremental: improve the plastic used in existing bottles while also creating refill options for customers willing to reuse packaging.

What B Corp Recertification Would Have Meant

Before its acquisition, Method used B Corp certification as an external signal of its environmental and social commitments.

The brand did not maintain B Corp certification after becoming part of SC Johnson. Because B Corp assessments consider ownership and broader corporate structures, certification became more complicated once Method was part of a much larger parent company.

Method has continued to express support for B Lab’s mission, but losing the certification changed how the brand could demonstrate independent accountability.

That is one of the clearest tensions in Method’s post-acquisition story. A company can keep its products, factory, design language, and sustainability programs after being acquired. It may be harder to keep the same third-party certifications that helped establish trust when the company was independent.

Financial Overview

SC Johnson is private and does not publish Method-level financials. Use only attributable historical markers:

Do not invent current Method revenue, margin, or factory throughput. The financial story available to the public is: scaled enough to merge with Ecover, then valuable enough for SC Johnson to buy, then absorbed into a portfolio that reports sustainability at group level.

Operations & Organizational Structure

Method’s North American home-care products are largely manufactured at its Pullman facility in Chicago, with additional products made through manufacturing partners in the U.S. and Canada.

Its supply chain includes ingredients such as surfactants that may be palm-derived, along with packaging materials that increasingly use post-consumer recycled plastic. Distribution and logistics now benefit from SC Johnson’s broader operating network.

Governance, however, sits at the parent-company level. Method’s earlier history as a benefit corporation does not extend to SC Johnson’s wider portfolio of brands.

Challenges & Crisis Management

Method’s biggest challenge is maintaining trust as a mission-driven brand inside a conventional consumer products company.

Key issues include:

• Acquisition legitimacy: Some advocacy groups have criticized Method and Ecover because SC Johnson permits animal testing where required by law. Brand-level cruelty-free certifications do not satisfy critics evaluating the full corporate group.

• Marketing claims: Method’s 2021 settlement over “non-toxic” language showed how sustainability messaging can create legal and reputational risk when claims are too broad.

• B Corp exit: Losing B Corp certification weakened one of the brand’s clearest external signals of accountability.

• Refill competition: Tablet and concentrate-first competitors can challenge Method on packaging reduction, even when Method uses recycled plastic.

• Ingredient complexity: Method now acknowledges that plant-based ingredients are not automatically more sustainable, especially when sourcing risks such as palm oil are involved.

The broader challenge is keeping that transparency specific. Statements about “continuous improvement” are only credible when they are tied to concrete issues such as palm sourcing, recycled plastic versus reuse, certification changes, and packaging reduction.

If Method’s sustainability language becomes vague again, earlier legal and credibility issues risk becoming more relevant, not less.

Lessons Learned

Method offers several useful lessons for founders and consumer brands:

• Make sustainability desirable. Method succeeded because the products looked and felt better, not because customers were asked to sacrifice.

• Physical infrastructure builds credibility. The Pullman factory became a visible proof point for the brand’s environmental ambitions.

• Certifications become harder to control after acquisition. External standards such as B Corp may not survive a change in ownership or corporate structure.

• Parent-company behavior matters. Consumers often judge an acquired brand through the policies of the company that owns it.

• Transparency has to be specific. Real accountability means naming unresolved issues rather than relying on broad sustainability language.

• Performance still matters most at retail. Scent, product quality, formulation, and shelf appeal remain critical to keeping customers.