Unilever Reports on First Year’s Progress Against Ground-breaking Sustainable Living Plan Targets

As part of the update, Unilever announced that by the end of 2012 it will reach its target of 100% certified sustainable palm oil covered by Green Palm Certificates, a full three years ahead of schedule. Whilst this is strong progress, the company say they recognize that the Green Palm Scheme is only a step along the road towards sustainable palm oil, not the end game.

25 April 2012 – Unilever has published a report on the progress it is making towards meeting its Unilever Sustainable Living Plan targets.

The plan, published in November 2010, broke new ground by committing to take responsibility for the company’s impacts right across the value chain, from the sourcing of raw materials all the way through to the consumer’s use of its products to cook, clean and wash.

As part of the update, Unilever announced that by the end of 2012 it will reach its target of 100% certified sustainable palm oil covered by Green Palm Certificates, a full three years ahead of schedule.  Whilst this is strong progress, the company say they recognize that the Green Palm Scheme is only a step along the road towards sustainable palm oil, not the end game. Although it will be even more difficult to achieve, Unilever has now set a new target of purchasing all its palm oil from traceable sources by 2020. This means it will be able to track all the certified oil it buys back to the plantation on which it was originally grown.

To help achieve this goal, it announced that it is in advanced stages of discussions with the Indonesian government for investing over €100m in a large processing plant for palm oil derivatives in Sumatra. This plant will not only cut back on transport and save money but it will make it easier to trace the sources of the palm oil used.

Unilever CEO, Paul Polman said: “In a world where temperatures are rising, energy is costing more, sanitation is worsening and food supply is less secure, companies can no longer sit on the sidelines waiting for governments to take action. We have to see ourselves as part of the solution to these problems. In Unilever, we believe that our future success depends upon being able to decouple our growth from our environmental footprint, while at the same time increasing our positive social impacts.

“Many of our goals look as daunting now as they did when we announced them, but you have to set uncomfortable targets if you are to really change things. Sustainable growth will be the only acceptable model of growth in the future, which is why we have put the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan at the heart of our business strategy. And far from being a hindrance to our progress, we are now seeing increasing evidence that it can drive business growth.  Unilever grew well in 2011, but what is encouraging is that the brands which put sustainability at the centre of their propositions, like Lifebuoy soap or Persil/Omo Small & Mighty, grew faster than the average.

“It is also becoming ever clearer that we cannot tackle the big issues alone: much of our progress to date has come where we have worked with others. And at the end of the day, if we achieve our own sustainability targets but no one else follows, we will not have been truly successful. For that reason we are working with other organizations such as the Consumer Goods Forum, World Economic Forum, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, governments, NGOs and others to drive change. At Unilever we believe collaboration will become the only way of doing business in the future.”