A couple of months ago, Unilever announced a bold commitment to invest €1 billion over the next decade in projects that will benefit the environment and will help deliver on its goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2039. In a bid to take it a step further, the consumer goods giant is now planning to invest another €1 billion in eliminating fossil fuels from its cleaning products by 2030.
Because 30 percent of the firm’s annual emissions come from its suppliers, the focus will be to help the supplying companies develop recycled or renewable alternatives to chemicals derived from fossil fuels.
These could include materials sourced from plants and marine sources, as well as materials recovered from plastic waste and CO2 captured from industrial emissions. The main goal of the new initiative is to convert Unilever’s factories to be able to use these alternative sources.
The €1 billion will be directed towards research, implementation, and working with suppliers to enable them to adopt non-fossil fuel chemicals in their cleaning products and eliminate petrochemicals altogether within a decade.
While Unilever still has a lot of work to do before it can call itself a flagbearer for sustainability, the company’s latest efforts could have a real potential in reducing the giant’s environmental footprint in the near future.
