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Waqas Admani
IMS 3310
Professor Thomas Henderson
20 July 2015
Paper 2 Sustainability
Sustainability can be defined as the management of issues related to the
environment. It should be every organizations duty to take care of the environment and
refrain from any activities that may threaten to affect it adversely. Some firms only aim to
make profits and while looking for that tend to ignore the environmental damages their
activities may cause whereas other companies are more concerned about the environment
and make sure they pay attention to sustainability. Unilever pays special attention to
sustainability. According to their website, unilever.com, their purpose is to make
sustainable living commonplace. They are developing new business practices that cater to
the growth of their company and communities, fulfilling people's desire for more
sustainable products and creating a better future for living now and for the future
generations to come. The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan as they refer to it will help
them double the size of their business while reducing effects on the environment and
increase their positive social impact. By 2020 their goal is to cut the environmental
effects of making and using their products into half as they grow.
Unilever is working hard to reduce greenhouse gases. It is also working on
eliminating deforestation by using their resources to create transformational change.
Their focus is to act on climate change by eliminating deforestation, introducing or

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altering their current products in a way that they use less green house gases intensive
materials and reduce emissions in their manufacturing and pursuing energy efficiency in
factories. The progress since 2008 has been pretty decent. According to 2014 statistics on
unilever.com, there has been a 37% per tonne reduction in CO2 emissions from
manufacturing. However, greenhouse gas impacts per consumer use increased by 4%.
Greenhouse gas impacts by consumer use seem to be a tough challenge for
Unilever. An increase in its impact over the last few years is not a good sign at all and
needs to be addressed. Unilever has been trying to reduce impacts caused by consumers
with products such as compressed deodorant sprays and laundry detergents that wash
clothes at lower temperatures, but there is more that needs to be done to make sure that
the usage of Unilever products do not harm the environment. That can be done by using
raw materials that when used emit lesser greenhouse gases. There should also be
marketing campaigns that advise customers how to use the products in a way that they
have no or lesser negative impact on the environment.
Growing water shortage is also another threat to our future growth and at the same
time a business opportunity for Unilever to better meet peoples requirements. Unilevers
approach emphasizes on managing water well in agriculture and industry as according to
International Fund for Agricultural Development 92% of the total freshwater is used for
irrigation (70%) and industry (22%) and it is extremely important to limit that and assure
it is used effectively. According to 2014 statistics Unilevers water impact per consumer
use reduced by roughly 2% relative to 2010. Also, Unilever has managed significant
reductions in the water used in manufacturing, where their factories have been able to
abstract 16 million fewer cubic meters of water in 2014 in comparison to 2008 which is

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equivalent to a 32% reduction per tonne of production.
To better conserve water Unilever should consider developing innovative devices
and services that allow more effective and efficient use of water in homes, factories and
offices and at the same time convince and encourage customers to purchase and use those
devices. To create further impact on water management, Unilever needs to work along
with governments, businesses and consumers to manage water use at scale.
Waste due to packaging is another major threat to sustainability. Packaging usually
ends up as waste in landfill or as litter. There is also a concern regarding the resources
being used to produce packaging. Unilever is working on minimizing resource inputs and
increasing the recyclability of packaging. It is doing so by seeking to use fewer resources
and enabling packaging to be refilled, increasing the use of recycled and renewable
materials, reducing waste from manufacturing operations and global offices and reducing
food waste in the supply chain and educating consumers how to handle food waste. Their
progress has been good since the previous few years. As of 2014 they have reduced waste
footprint by 12% per consumer use in comparison to 2010. In addition, there has been a
reduction in total waste of 85% per tonne of production since 2008.
Unilever has been doing a good job as far as waste reduction is concerned, but it
can get even better than this if Unilever decides to partner with waste service providers
and possibly influence a government policy that leads to waste reduction.
In conclusion, I would say that Unilever is in the right direction and has the right
idea as far as sustainability is concerned. It has been doing a good job and has set high
standards for itself. However, there are some areas which can be worked on which can

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further help them in saving the environment and our limited resources.