Climate Adaptation

Unilever’s New Climate Plan Puts Carbon

Labels on 70,000 Products
The consumer giant is committing to reduce a large portion of its emissions to zero by 2039.

By Akshat Rathi
15 June 2020, 04:29 GMT+5:30
Updated on 15 June 2020, 20:40 GMT+5:30

Boxes of Lipton tea sit on display in an Associated Supermarket in New York on July 9, 2007.  Photographer:
Andrew Burton/Bloomberg

Unilever NV is releasing a new set of climate goals that make it the most ambitious of any
consumer goods company tackling carbon emissions. The maker of Dove skincare, Colman’s
mustard, and Q-tips cotton swabs now aims to zero out all emissions from its own operations
and those of its suppliers by 2039.
More than that, it’s going to show its work: each of the company’s 70,000 products will show
on their labels how much greenhouse gas was emitted in the process of manufacturing and
shipping them to consumers. The company is also committing to invest €1 billion ($1.1 billion) in
climate-friendly initiatives over the next decade.

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The global carbon disclosure nonprofit CDP already ranks Unilever highly for climate-friendly
corporate governance and prioritizing emissions reduction in its supply chain.
The conglomerate set its first science-based climate target back in 2010, when it committed to
cutting all the emissions associated with its products by half by 2030. Unilever’s emissions
continued to rise until 2016, but they’ve been falling ever since. The company’s biggest rivals,
Kraft Heinz Co. and Procter & Gamble Co., fare far worse on CDP’s scale. 

“While the world is dealing with the devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, and
grappling with serious issues of inequality, we can’t let ourselves forget that the climate crisis is
still a threat to all of us,” said Unilever Chief Executive Officer Alan Jope in a statement.

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To accomplish its new goals, Unilever will aim to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions as far as
possible before leaning carbon offsets. While in theory these offsets balance out emissions by
funding activities such as tree planting, landscape restoration, and regenerative farming—all of
which can to suck carbon out of the air and put it back in the ground—in practice serious
questions remain about the carbon accounting used by many companies offering offsets. 
“We could announce that we are carbon neutral today by just spending money on
offsets,” says Marc Engel, Unilever’s global head of supply chain. “But we have deliberately
decided not to do that.”

The company emits about 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, Engel says. About
3 million metric tons of those emissions fall under Scope 1 and Scope 2, meaning the
emissions are produced by Unilever burning fossil fuels to heat its offices and power its
factories. Those emissions will be cut to zero by 2039 under the new plan.

Unilever is further committing to eliminate 30 million metric tons of emissions produced on its

behalf in the furnishing of raw materials or shipping finished products to supermarket shelves.
The suppliers who create these emissions, known as Scope 3, will have nine months to adopt
science-based climate targets that lead to cuts. The company’s remaining 65 million metric
tons of emissions under Scope 3 are produced in the use of Unilever products—whenever
someone boils water, say, for a cup of Lipton tea. Unilever will try to cut these in half by 2030. 

“That’s the part we least control,” Engel says. Cuts “will rely on governments greening the grid,
replacing natural gas with hydrogen, etc.” But product innovation can help, such as producing
detergents that can be used in washing machines with water at room temperature, rather than
at high temperatures as is typical today.

As part of the same climate plan, Unilever is committing to go “deforestation-free”

throughout the supply chains for the five raw ingredients most associated with tree loss: palm
oil, soybeans, tea, paper, and cocoa. For now the company relies on certification done by third
parties, but it’s moving to a verification process that will use satellite imagery and blockchain
technology.

“It makes certification obsolete because you literally have real-time verification,” says Engel.
That data will be made available for anyone to verify for themselves. 

As impressive as that seems, the deadline to get there has been pushed forward. “In 2010,
Unilever committed to end deforestation for commodities by 2020,” said Greenpeace U.K.
Executive Director John Sauven in a press release. “It failed and has now kicked the can even
further down the road to 2023.”

The most challenging task will be carbon labeling all its products. Some companies, such as
oat milk-maker Oatly Inc., have started to print on their packaging how many kilograms of
carbon dioxide were released in the making of products. Engel is aiming to do that for
Unilever’s entire inventory, from shampoo to coffee to mayonnaise to deodorants.
Currently there are no standards or third-party verification available, which means that
consumers will have to take the company’s word for it. But Engel says he hopes Unilever’s
competitors will follow suit, and that soon there will be an independent standard for carbon
labeling just as there is for nutritional labels on foodstuffs.

“It’s a very big commitment,” he says. “But we are clearly seeing that consumers want to know
how the products they buy contribute to their own carbon footprint.”

— With assistance by Thomas Buckley

(Adds chief executive comment in 4th paragraph. Adds Greenpeace U.K. comment in 12th
paragraph.)

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