Our people plans
Together with our partners we're supporting inclusive economic growth and promoting equality through our commitments to suppluer diversity and the living wage.
Our planet plans
At Unilever, we have wide-ranging environmental commitments, announced in January 2021, designed to protect and regenerate nature. You can read more on our Planet & Society page.
Collaborating for climate
Unilever is taking proactive action to limit our planet’s temperature rise to 1.5°C by committing to halving the greenhouse gas (GHG) impact of our products across the lifecycle by 2030, and ensuring zero GHG emissions from our own operations by 2030. We are also working towards net-zero carbon emissions across our Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by 20391, which means we'll radically reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG) impact from the raw and packaging materials we source, manufacturing, logistics and distribution. We’ll also reduce emissions from ice cream freezers, aerosols and the disposal of products and packaging.
One of the ways we will do this is by forming purpose-led partnerships with suppliers who share our ambition to make sustainable living commonplace.
We are asking our existing suppliers to adopt carbon reduction targets to cut their emissions and are prioritising partnerships with new suppliers who already have science-based emissions targets in place.
We also plan to roll out integrated GHG reduction roadmaps for all key materials and ingredients with a significant impact on our third party GHG footprint (also known as Unilever’s Scope 3 GHG footprint). These roadmaps will form part of our ongoing relationship and performance management with partners. We anticipate this effort to reduce third-party emissions will require significant capability and capacity building and, as such, will take time.
We see many more opportunities to reduce emissions throughout our value chain and have identified the areas where we believe we can have most impact. For more information take a look at our Climate Transition Action Plan (PDF | 11MB).
Coming together as an industry
As part of our membership with the 1.5°C Supply Chain Leaders, led by the Exponential Roadmap Initiative, we’re collaborating with other climate leaders including BT, IKEA and Ericsson, to drive climate action. We’re also exploring innovative ideas for climate action with other multinational companies, including Maersk, Microsoft and Nike, as part of the Transform to Net Zero initiative.
We welcome partners who share our sustainability ambitions. The significant transformation our planet demands requires us to work closely with our supply partners, so we are happy to share our knowledge on environmental sustainability.
Visit our Climate action page for more on how we’re addressing the climate crisis and get in touch if you’d like to join our journey.
Unilever’s Climate Promise
Through our Climate Promise, Unilever is asking suppliers to demonstrate their shared values and commitment to reducing their greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint as we work to achieve our stretching goal of net-zero emissions across our value chain by 2039.
As more and more companies work towards net-zero emissions, many are recognising the majority of GHG emissions in their value chain come from outside their own operations. Through our Climate Promise, we want to find ways to work with our partners to measure, reduce and report on emissions in their own value chains and look for ways to incentivise and support their success.
This Promise, whilst optional, presents as an opportunity for our suppliers to demonstrate that addressing the environmental footprint of our value chains is of paramount importance.
By signing up to Unilever’s Climate Promise, our suppliers commit to:
- Set a public climate target to halve absolute GHG emissions by 2030 (baseline of 2015 earliest)
- Publicly report progress towards meeting this target
- Share the product greenhouse gas footprint data for materials they supply to Unilever
Unilever Climate Programme
Through the Unilever Climate Programme, we will provide support to a subset of suppliers whose materials we've assessed as having the most significant impact on climate.
Within this group of 300 suppliers, we have detected a range of climate capabilities. Through our programme, we will offer hands-on guidance and access to tools and resources to support those that need it.
We are starting immediately with a small group of diverse suppliers who can help us shape the programme, before moving to a pilot in 2022. We will continue to onboard new suppliers to the programme over the 12-18 months that follow, until all 300 suppliers benefit.
Partnering for a deforestation-free supply chain
About 23% of human-led global greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, forestry and other land uses2. When forests are cleared, burned or degraded, they emit carbon dioxide and also leave soils exposed, increasing erosion and the risk of landslides. It is now widely accepted that to address climate change and biodiversity loss, we must end deforestation.
Our People & Nature Policy (PDF 2.03 MB) , launched in December 2020, combines our previously separate Palm Oil and Paper and Board policies and outlines the existing and new expectations we have of every supplier of conversion-risk crops (palm oil, soy, paper and board, tea and cocoa).
Our partners also play a critical role in our commitment to achieve a deforestation-free supply chain by 2023 by helping us to get closer to and support the people who grow our crops and the landscapes on which they are grown.
Visit our Protect and regenerate nature section for more on how we’re working to help nature flourish.
[1]
Our net zero target covers Scope 1, 2 and mandatory downstream Scope 3 emissions such as aerosol propellants and the biodegradation of chemicals in the disposal phase. It does not include emissions from consumer use of our products e.g. emissions associated with hot water used with our products. Our goal to halve the greenhouse gas impact of our products across the lifecycle by 2030 covers consumer use.