Our footprint
We sell around 160 million products every day around the world, which represents many millions of bits of packaging needing disposal. Our business currently uses a wide range of different materials, including: paper, board, plastic, glass, aluminium, steel and laminate packs such as sachets and pouches.
Our approach
With products on sale in over 150 countries, we need a coherent and sophisticated packaging strategy.
Our approach to responsible packaging seeks to take into account environmental, social and economic considerations. In 2007 we created a Responsible Packaging Steering Team to define a revised strategy. This team is building on the work already carried out over the past few years by the Unilever Packaging Group.
To date our approach has consisted of five key principles:
Remove: to eliminate, where possible, unnecessary layers of packaging such as outer cartons and shrink-wrap film – an area where our retail customers are increasingly setting reduction targets.
Reduce: to reduce packages to the optimal size and weight for their contents.
Reuse: to reuse packaging from the materials we receive at our factories.
Renew: to maximise the proportion of packaging from renewable resources and to investigate the technical feasibility of biodegradable and compostable materials
Recycle: to increase the use of recycled, recyclable and single-material components in packaging for easy sorting and recycling at the end of its use.
Reducing packaging and waste can have business benefits, too, as it can lead to cost savings.
Other priority areas
We have set a goal of eliminating PVC from our packaging where there is a viable alternative. There are technical challenges to overcome where there are no clear alternatives, but we are focusing our research on these areas.
Litter from used packaging is an environmental nuisance. The sachets we use in developing and emerging markets help make our products more affordable to consumers, yet can end up contributing to this problem. Finding a solution remains a challenge and we are currently looking at ways of working with partners to find solutions.
We are continually looking to improve the sustainability of the paper we source, as it is a significant part of our packaging mix. We can do this through increasing our sourcing from certified forests or through the use of recycled paper. This can be difficult, however, as sustainable forestry practices vary significantly from region to region. We are working with both suppliers and NGOs to develop sustainable paper sources.
