Our approach
We define our combined social and environmental responsibilities as our corporate responsibility.
Our interactions with society fall into three distinct areas:
(i) Voluntary contributions: Voluntary contributions made to the community and wider society, often in partnership with not-for-profit organisations, are the visible 'tip of the iceberg' of the much larger impact of business operations
(ii) Impact of operations: The most important impact on society is through a business's direct operations
(iii) Impact through the value chain: A wider indirect impact along the 'value chain', from suppliers through trade customers to consumers
Corporate responsibility is central to the way we run our business and in each of these areas we aim to make a positive contribution to society. For example by developing products that meet consumers' needs, creating and sharing wealth, investing in local economies, developing people's skills, reducing our environmental impacts or sharing our technical expertise across borders or with our supply chain partners.
Adopting Unilever's standards
All our companies must comply with local laws and adopt the same Unilever standards for occupational health and safety, consumer safety and environmental care, wherever they are in the world. This approach stems from the values in our Corporate Purpose and is governed by the standards in our Code of Business Principles and our Business Partner Code.
From these, we develop strategies to drive forward specific areas of performance. For example our environmental strategy commits us to eco-efficiency – improving the environmental efficiency of supply-chain operations – and to eco-innovation, which involves incorporating environmental factors into product design. We do this by:
- using environmental science and techniques including lifecycle assessments to understand our products' environmental impact;
- using our ISO 14001 compatible environmental management systems to achieve continuous improvement in our manufacturing operations;
- working with many people outside our organisation who provide advice, information and feedback on environmental projects and issues.
