Unilever makes progress on its sustainable packaging goals

London/Rotterdam; 29 October 2020. Unilever, owner of brands including Dove, Seventh Generation and Magnum, continues to make progress towards its ambitious commitments for a waste-free world, despite the challenging environment created by Covid-19. Unilever’s commitments remain unchanged and the company has significantly stepped up its use of recycled plastic.

Last year, Unilever became the first major consumer goods company to commit to an absolute plastic reduction across its portfolio. By 2025, the company confirmed it will halve its use of virgin plastic by reducing its use of plastic packaging by more than 100,000 tonnes and accelerating its use of recycled plastic. One year on, Unilever shares an update on its progress; it has:

• Stepped up its use of post-consumer recycled plastic (PCR) to around 75,000 tonnes*, which is over 10% of Unilever’s plastic footprint. A significant increase from 2019, and solid progress towards its goal to use at least 25% PCR by 2025. Unilever expects its use of PCR to double in the next 12 months.
• Launched new innovations to reduce its absolute use of plastic, such as recyclable paper-based ice cream tubs which will save about 4,500 tonnes of plastic. vContinued to ‘test, learn and refine’ new business models linked to reusable and refillable packaging, and now has dedicated teams to scale work in this space. Today, Unilever shares its learnings on refill and reuse models.
• Developed country-specific roadmaps to achieve its goal to help collect and process more plastic packaging than it sells.

As a result of these actions, Unilever is on track to reduce its use of virgin plastic packaging since it made its new commitments.

Unilever continues to explore new ways of delivering products through its ‘Less, Better, No’ plastic framework.

• Through ‘Less Plastic’ Unilever has explored new packaging formats, including recyclable Carte d’Or ice cream tubs made from paper, and Comfort expanded its ultra-concentrated fabric conditioner which has a 57% smaller dosage than any other product on the market. It requires less water to produce and needs less packaging, thereby saving resources and waste. In France, Signal has launched a toothbrush with a replaceable head. It uses a metal handle, PCR material in the replaceable heads and reduces virgin plastic by 95%. Love, Beauty and Planet has launched concentrated shampoo and conditioners which provide the same number of uses as a regular sized bottle and use 50% less plastic.
• ‘Better plastic’ has led to one of the world’s biggest beauty brands, Dove, move to 100% recycled plastic bottles where technically feasible in North America and Europe. Other brands which use 100% recycled plastic include: Hellmann's recycled plastic jars and bottles in North America, pioneer sweet soy sauce Bango in Indonesia, and Sunlight Dishwashing Liquid in South Africa, Italy, Argentina, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand. In Germany, Seventh Generation has launched bottles made from locally-sourced recycled plastic from Hamburg, where they are sold. In addition, Magnum will roll out 7 million ice-cream tubs made with food grade recycled plastic. OMO (Persil) is re-launching its liquid detergent with changes to its packaging and formulation to significantly reduce the environmental impact of the product. The new bottle is 100% recyclable, made using 50% recycled plastic. This launch is part of Unilever’s new ‘Clean Future’ commitment to lower the carbon footprint of their cleaning and laundry products.
• As part of ‘No Plastic’, Seventh Generation has launched a zero-plastic range and PG Tips will remove the plastic film on boxes in 2021, having already launched fully biodegradable teabags. In Chile, Unilever has partnered with Algramo on an app-powered, intelligent dispensing system which has thrived during lockdown thanks to its tricycle distribution system across Santiago.

Unilever continues to work with many partners to help collect and process plastic packaging, with programmes in multiple countries, including Brazil, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, United Kingdom and United States. This includes direct investments and partnerships in waste collection and processing, building capacity by buying recycled plastics, and through supporting well-designed extended producer responsibility schemes in which Unilever directly pays for the collection of its packaging.

In India, Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) has partnered with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to protect the livelihoods of informal waste collectors, and to help segregate, collect and recycle packaging. The partnership has reached over 33,000 households and collected 2,500 tonnes of plastic waste. The project will be scaled to include more households in the coming years.

Since 2018, HUL has facilitated safe disposal of more than one lakh tonnes of post-consumer use plastic laminate waste. This was done with the help of collection and disposal partners in nearly 100 towns across India.

In Indonesia, Unilever has already helped communities in 18 cities develop systems where they can collect and sell waste. Unilever is using ‘Google My Business’, a platform which enables consumers to access the location of nearby waste banks directly on Google Maps. Currently, 424 waste banks are searchable on the digital tool, and the aim is to make 2,000 waste banks available through Google Maps by the end of 2020.