2Sustain

More “courageous interventions” are needed from industry and government to enact real change in the area of sustainability, according to Unilever CEO Paul Polman. Polman said co-operation between companies and with government is vital to alleviate the impact of business on the environment and to change consumer habits.

“Frameworks with governments is a good example. If you have clear goals on CO2 emissions and carbon trading globally, if you have governments saying no to illegal deforestation, things would move a lot faster,” he said.

This week, Unilever published the first results of its ten-year Sustainable Living Plan, a program of initiatives designed to reduce its impact on the environment while the company grows. Unilever has made progress, notably on sourcing more of its agricultural raw materials more sustainably and reducing the amount of energy used throughout its operations. However, the report also lists areas where the company is “off plan” (including the sustainable sourcing of sunflower oil) and where it missed its target (on improving heart health).

Polman insisted the Sustainable Living Plan had, for Unilever, become “the way we do business” and he claimed the company’s strategy had “galvanized” others into action. He acknowledged that getting others to act “is not always easy” but said he had seen signs that industry had been able to “transform markets”.

And, although the Unilever chief believes government intervention is needed in some areas to encourage more sustainable behavior from industry and consumers, he believes business can go further. At the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, Polman arranged a meeting of CEOs on sustainability, which he says will lead to a range of businesses making commitments at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio in June. “At Rio, you will see business pushing much harder and faster than governments as they will be tied up in election cycles,” he says.

Danone, Unilever, Heinz and Nestlé are the most sustainable large food producers in the world, according to new research released earlier this month by Bank Sarasin.

The study, Food and sustainability: Will the seed bear fruit? highlights three central sustainability themes that affect food producers:

• health and nutrition
• sourcing more raw materials from sustainable agriculture
• committing to fair working conditions.

And although the report found that many large food producers are developing sustainability strategies, Bank Sarasin concluded that most companies still have plenty of ground to cover on the path towards sustainability.

For example, the food industry as a whole faces significant challenges regarding the procurement of raw materials from sustainable sources. The world’s largest food producers purchase a significant share of global harvests –up to 20 percent of the world’s coffee, more than 10 percent of its tea, tomatoes and peas, and about 5 percent of its palm oil. Companies that have worked to secure large volumes of their raw materials from sustainable sources ranked high on Bank Sarasin’s matrix of sustainability criteria.
(more…)

Last week, Unilever launched its Sustainable Living Plan, which includes more than 50 social, economic and environmental targets. According to CEO Paul Polman these goals represent “new ways of doing business which will ensure that our growth does not come at the expense of the world’s diminishing natural resources.”

Specifically, Unilever wants to: (more…)

The demand for certified sustainable palm oil is continuing to grow, and last week Cargill announced that it will supply Unilever’s European operations with 10,000 metric tonnes of segregated refined palm oil, certified by the Round Table for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).

Unilever, one of the world’s largest buyers of palm oil, plans to be using only sustainable palm oil by 2015. Already this year, over 35 percent is RSPO-certified, indicating that the company is well on its way to achieving that goal. (more…)

Last Wednesday, a day after Greenpeace released a new report airing fresh allegations that the Indonesian paper firm Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) is “wreaking environmental havoc” in rainforests and peatlands, French retail giant Carrefour announced that it has suspended sourcing of APP products.

APP is part of the Sinar Mas group, and the Greenpeace report, titled How Sinar Mas is Pulping the Planet, maintains that the paper company is destroying Indonesia’s rainforests and carbon-rich peatlands so that it can feed its Sumatran based pulp mills, which then export pulp and paper products to a variety retailers worldwide. (more…)