Unilever saves 1 million tonnes of CO2

Unilever is proud to announce that its manufacturing network has saved 1 million tonnes of CO₂ since 2008.

Overall energy consumption has been reduced by 20% - the same amount of energy used to run 40 factories - resulting in cost savings of around $478,545,000. Australian CO₂ emissions have been reduced by 28% compared to the 2008 baseline.

Unilever Chief Supply Chain Officer Pier Luigi Sigismondi said the company was “delighted to have hit this milestone in our CO₂ reduction”. The savings have been delivered by a global strategy, with examples including:

• In South Africa, a by-product of the seed oil from Flora, Stork, Rama and Rondo is used as a fuel in the boilers to deliver energy back into the factory.
• In the UK Marmite factory, 18,000 tonnes of solid Marmite waste is converted into methane via an anaerobic digester, which is used to provide 30% of the factory’s thermal energy.

Unilever is also helping other industries to reduce their carbon emissions; for example, waste from the company’s operations in Indonesia goes into another company’s cement as a material.

Unilever will continue to reduce its energy consumption and will switch to renewable energy where cost effective. In Europe and North America, all of the electricity purchased by Unilever factories is from renewable sources. Across the globe, 28% of the energy used by Unilever factories comes from renewable sources, with 39% of electrical energy produced from this source.

“Across our supply chain we are increasingly turning to energy provided by wind, solar and biomass, converting heat from our manufacturing processes into power for our factories,” said Sigismondi. “We are on track to reach our target of 40% renewable energy by 2020.”

The company has also joined the RE100 campaign to accelerate the scale-up of renewable power to create a healthier and more sustainable environment. The goal of RE100 is for at least 100 of the world’s most influential businesses to join the campaign and commit to going 100% renewable for electricity.

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