Our biggest
challenges

Poverty, malnutrition, climate change and water scarcity: these are some of the big challenges facing the world and our business today. Find out more about how we are addressing these and other sustainability issues.

Unilever Sustainable Living Plan

Inspiring billions of people to take small, everyday actions that add up to a big difference.

School girl washing hands with soap

By 2020, we will halve the environmental footprint of our products, help more than 1 billion people take action to improve their health and well-being, and source 100% of our agricultural raw materials sustainably.

Some performance highlights

  • Nutrition

    44%

    Of products in line with internationally accepted guidelines for saturated and trans fat, sugar and salt.

  • Sustainable sourcing

    15%

    Of our global purchases of tea and palm oil from sustainable sources.

  • Greenhouse gases

    44%

    Reduction in CO2 from energy per tonne of production by our factories from 1995–2010 (preliminary data).

  • Water

    66%

    Reduction in water use per tonne of production by our factories from 1995–2010 (preliminary data).

  • Community

    €89m

    invested in community programmes worldwide in 2009.

  • Employee safety

     

    15.7% reduction in our total recordable frequency rate in 2010 (preliminary data).

Our people

Harold Bokaba

Harold Bokaba AIDS Champion, Unilever South Africa

It takes a particular type of personality to dole out condoms to burly truck drivers, but that's just one of the approaches Harold Bokaba has taken in an effort to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS among his fellow South Africans.

News

Unilever distributor in Lagos, Nigeria

Unilever in 'Supply Chain Top 25'

Unilever has been included in this year's 'Supply Chain Top 25' - a ranking of supply chain leaders.