Unilever’s commitment to put sustainable and equitable growth at
the heart of its business model is helping to drive increased sales
while reducing costs and risks, according to the second Unilever
Sustainable Living Plan Progress Report published today.
Brands that have made sustainability central to their brand
proposition or product innovation have accelerated sales during
2012:
- Lifebuoy soap, which has increased its
handwashing education programmes, has seen double digit growth in
each of the last three years;
- Dry shampoos such as TRESemmé and Dove,
which result in 90% less greenhouse gas emissions compared to
washing hair in heated water, grew by nearly 20% in 2012;
- Calorie-controlled Max and Paddle Pop
children’s ice creams grew high double digit in 2012.
Unilever is also accelerating the integration of sustainability
into the heart of many of its biggest brands. For example Dove, its
largest personal care brand with sales of over €3 billion,
redesigned its self esteem programme for young people in 2012 to
further strengthen its engagement with consumers by helping them
look and feel their best. Last week Dove launched a new Real Beauty
campaign and just in a couple of days the video reached over 10
million views on YouTube. Another example comes from Unilever’s
biggest brand, Knorr, which launched its first product with a
‘sustainably grown’ label on pack, with more to come.
At the same time, eco-efficiencies in Unilever factories from
reducing energy, water, materials and waste have enabled the
company to take over €300 million out of the system since 2008. The
company has also reduced risk at a time of volatility in food
commodity prices by increasing its purchases of agricultural raw
materials from sustainable sources from 14% in 2010 to 36% in
2012.
Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever: “Sustainability is contributing to
our virtuous circle of growth. The more our products meet social
needs and help people live sustainably, the more popular our brands
become and the more we grow. And the more efficient we are at
managing resources such as energy and raw materials, the more we
lower our costs and reduce the risks to our business and the more
we are able to invest in sustainable innovation and brands.”
Unilever Sustainable Living Plan 2nd Year
Progress
In 2010 Unilever set three big goals, all to be achieved by
2020:
1) Help more than a billion people take action to improve their
health and well-being;
2) Source 100% of agricultural raw materials sustainably;
3) Halve the environmental footprint of its products across the
value chain.
Two years in to its ten-year Unilever Sustainable Living Plan,
Unilever reports solid progress on two of its three big goals.
Help more than a billion people take action to improve their
health and well-being
The company has reached 224 million people with programmes to
reduce diarrhoeal disease through handwashing with soap, provide
safe drinking water, promote oral health and improve young people’s
self-esteem. Lifebuoy soap reached 71 million people in 16
countries in 2012 – five times as many people as in 2010.
Source 100% of agricultural raw materials sustainably
Unilever now buys over a third (36%) of its agricultural raw
materials from sustainable sources, with particular progress in
palm oil, sugar, cocoa, vegetables and sunflower oil. We have also
now helped to train 450,000 tea farmers in sustainable practices,
of whom over 300,000 have achieved Rainforest Alliance
certification.
Halve the environmental footprint of its products across the
value chain
Unilever is making good progress in areas it can control.
Between 2008-2012 greenhouse gas emissions from energy in
manufacturing have been cut by nearly a third and manufacturing
waste has halved. Over half of Unilever's 252 manufacturing sites
around the world now send zero non-hazardous waste to landfill, and
the company has set itself a new target of extending this to all
its factories by 2015. However, its own manufacturing impacts
account for only a small part of the total environmental footprint
of Unilever’s products in the total value chain – just 4% of its
greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint for example. The majority of
Unilever’s product footprint is in the sourcing of raw materials
(25% of its GHG footprint) and in the way consumers cook, clean and
wash with the products (68% of its GHG footprint). One of our
biggest challenges remains how we encourage our consumers to use
our products more sustainably at home.
Looking ahead
Although there is considerable progress, the company also faces
challenges which it cannot solve alone. To reach its goals and
achieve large scale change, Unilever believes even more
collaboration is needed between companies, governments, NGOs and
consumers. Among the areas where the company would welcome more
cross-sector collaboration are: reducing and eliminating
deforestation associated with soy, palm oil, beef, pulp and paper
by 2020; integrating hygiene behaviour change into national health
policies and education curricula; linking more smallholder farmers
into food supply chains; and building infrastructure to promote
waste recycling and recovery.
Helping consumers change their behaviour to live more
sustainably is also key. In the absence of major framework changes
by governments, the company is tackling this in a number of ways,
from driving habit change through packaging solutions, such as
single dose laundry detergent capsules which make it easier for
consumers to dose accurately, to working with others such as
retailers and civil society organisations to encourage shoppers to
make sustainable choices at the supermarket and in the home. In
addition, Unilever is leveraging its scale and reach to work with
its many suppliers across the value chain to instil sustainable
practices.
Paul Polman said: “The world continues to face big challenges.
The lack of access of many to food, nutrition, basic hygiene and
sanitation, clean drinking water or a decent job should be a
concern to all of us. We firmly believe business has a big role to
play in striving for more equitable and sustainable growth, but
large-scale change will only come about if there is real
collaboration between companies, governments and NGOs across all
these areas.”
About Unilever
Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of Food, Home
and Personal Care products with sales in over 190 countries. Our
products are present in 7 out of 10 homes globally and are used by
over 2 billion people on a daily basis. We work with 173,000
colleagues around the world, and generated annual sales of €51.3
billion in 2012. Over half of our company’s footprint is in the
faster growing developing and emerging markets (55% in 2012).
Working to create a better future every day, we help people feel
good, look good and get more out of life. Our portfolio includes
some of the world’s best known brands such as Knorr, Persil / Omo,
Dove, Sunsilk, Hellmann’s, Lipton, Rexona / Sure, Wall’s, Lux,
Rama, Ponds and Axe.
Our vision is to double the size of our business, whilst
reducing our environmental footprint (including sourcing, consumer
use and disposal) and increasing our positive social impact. We are
committed to helping more than a billion people take action to
improve their health and well-being, sourcing all our agricultural
raw materials sustainably by 2020, and decoupling our growth from
our environmental impact. Supporting these goals are seven
commitments underpinned by targets spanning our social,
environmental and economic performance across the value chain. See
more on the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan at
www.unilever.com/sustainable-living/.
Unilever has been recognised in the Dow Jones Sustainability
World Indexes for 14 consecutive years. We are included in the
FTSE4Good Index Series and attained a top environmental score of 5,
leading to inclusion in the FTSE4Good Environmental Leaders Europe
40 Index. In 2012, for the second year in a row, Unilever led the
Climate Counts Company Scorecard and topped the list of Global
Corporate Sustainability Leaders in the GlobeScan / SustainAbility
latest annual survey. The company is an employer of choice in many
of the countries in which it operates and is seen as a symbol for
innovation and leadership development.
For more information about Unilever and its brands, please visit
www.unilever.com.
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available:
http://www.businesswire.com/multimedia/home/20130422006320/en/
Unilever NV (NYSE:UN)
Historical Stock Chart
Von Jun 2024 bis Jul 2024
Unilever NV (NYSE:UN)
Historical Stock Chart
Von Jul 2023 bis Jul 2024