Unilever Addresses Climate Change

Unilever Addresses Climate Change

The Issue 

Climate change is one of the most serious issues facing the world. Extreme weather patterns and water scarcity will affect people everywhere, with developing countries likely to be among the most vulnerable.

There will be serious consequences for our business operations, including threats to our agricultural supply chain and the availability of water in some of our markets.

The costs of addressing climate change now, while considerable, are likely to be far less than waiting and allowing the problem to get worse.

We have joined business coalitions endorsing the need for action.

Our approach

In 2007, the Unilever Executive agreed a greenhouse gas strategy.

Our approach to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions addresses both our direct and indirect impacts.

For our direct impacts we seek to:

• reduce CO2 from energy in our manufacturing operations by 25% by 2012 (measured per ton of production against a baseline of 2004). This builds on our reductions to date.

For our indirect impacts we seek to:

• improve the footprint of our existing product portfolio, using our new vitality metric.
• assess innovations using our greenhouse gas profiling tool.
• work with our customers and suppliers to address our wider impacts.

Our carbon footprint

We estimate Unilever's total emissions of greenhouse gases from our own factories, offices, laboratories and business travel to be of the order of 4 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent a year. Our wider footprint in sourcing of agricultural and chemical raw materials can amount to around 10 times as much as our own emissions, and in consumer use and disposal of products may reach between 30 and 60 times as much as our own emissions, depending on the assumptions made about how consumers use our products.

Our direct impacts - Greenhouse gas emissions in manufacturing

Since 1995 we have achieved a 39% reduction in CO2 from energy per tonne of production (equivalent to a 43% reduction in absolute terms). In 2008, we reduced our CO2 emissions by 2.2% per tonne of production compared to 2007. This keeps us on track to meet our 2012 target. We continue to work towards our 2012 target by investing in more efficient power and steam generation technology and the development of less energy-intensive manufacturing processes. Our approach has been to target the sites which emit the most CO2.

In Europe we now have three combined heat and power plants operational in Caivano and Cisterna, Italy, and Stavenhagen, Germany. These are more environmentally efficient than importing electricity from the national supplier because they fully utilise the waste steam and hot water from electrical power generation. We are planning to install additional co-generation facilities in Europe to reduce regional greenhouse gas emissions.

We are exploring alternative technologies in other regions too. For example, at our Cu Chi factory in Vietnam, we installed solar panels to preheat water for steam generation.

As well as capital investment in more energy-efficient technology, raising awareness and behaviour change are also an important factor in reducing emissions. Simple practices such as turning off lighting, heating and equipment when not needed and reporting steam and compressed air leaks can deliver big energy savings. During 2008, we have conducted workshops to share good practice and raise technical capabilities in each region.

Source: www.unilever.com