Update on Unilever's Sustainable Living Plan

Unilever has announced that it is on track to meet most of its Sustainable Living Plan goals - a set of targets designed to help the company grow while minimising its impact on the environment.

Announced in 2010, the plan has three big goals to reach by 2020:

• Help more than 1 billion people improve their health and wellbeing.
• Halve the environmental footprint of its products and decouple environmental impact from growth.
• Source 100% of agricultural raw materials sustainably and enhance the livelihoods of millions of people.

The company is well on its way to achieving zero non-hazardous waste to landfill, with more than 240 Unilever factories in 67 countries having eliminated landfill waste entirely. This includes all three Unilever factories in Australia, where a range of policies and new waste solutions have been implemented to achieve this goal at the North Rocks, Minto and Tatura sites.

More than 55% of Unilever’s agricultural raw materials are now sustainably sourced, reducing the risk to supply. The company is also making significant reductions in CO₂ from energy and water in manufacturing, reducing them by 37% and 32% per tonne of production respectively since 2008.

Unilever claims to have improved the health and wellbeing of over 397 million people so far, placing it nearly 40% of the way towards its goal. The company has also enhanced the livelihoods of over 1 million people so far, having helped and trained 800,000 smallholder farmers since 2010 and provided 238,000 women with access to training, support and skills.

‘Sustainable living brands’ - ie, brands that contribute to one or more of the Sustainable Living Plan goals and have a sustainable-living purpose - now represent half of the company’s growth and are growing twice as fast as its other brands. Examples such as Dove, Lifebuoy, Ben & Jerry’s and Comfort are achieving above average growth, with high single- and double-digit sales over the past three years. Several of these brands have integrated sustainability into their purpose, product ingredients and life cycle.

Other achievements include:

• Reaching over 370,000 through ‘Dove BodyThink’ workshops run in partnership with the Butterfly Foundation.
• Ensuring 100% of the company’s children’s ice-creams contain 110 calories or fewer per portion, up from 86% in 2013.
• Replacing over 12,000 Streets ice-cream freezers since 2010 that use climate-friendly hydrocarbon refrigerant (R290), which emit less CO₂ and are more economical to run.
• Reducing total waste per tonne of production in 2014 in Australia by 41% compared to 2013.
• Reducing CO₂ emissions per tonne of production in Australia by 8% in 2014 compared to 2013.

“In just four years, we’ve made significant progress and marked a number of milestones along our sustainable living journey, both here in Australia and New Zealand and abroad,” said Clive Stiff, the chairman and CEO of Unilever Australia and New Zealand.

“However, as we reflect on this, we know there is more do to achieve the ambitious social and environmental targets of our plan. I look forward to working to make sustainable living commonplace in the years ahead.”

To view the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan Progress Report 2014, visit http://www.unilever.com.au/sustainable-living-2015/index/.