Unilever targets fossil carbon elimination with €1 billion investment

02 Sep 2020 --- Unilever has revealed plans to transfer 100 percent of the carbon derived from fossil fuels in its cleaning and laundry product formulations to renewable or recycled carbon. The transition away from fossil fuel-derived chemicals in product formulations aims to “fundamentally change” the way that Unilever’s cleaning and laundry brands are created, manufactured and packaged. Target products in question include Omo (Persil), Sunlight, Cif and Domestos. Moreover, Unilever has set aside €1 billion (US$1,185 billion) to finance biotechnology research, low carbon chemistry, as well as CO2 and waste utilization.

“Not only are we changing the formulation, but the bottle will also now be made with 50 percent post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic and has been redesigned to use less plastic, reducing the amount of virgin plastic by 1,000 metric tons over a year-long period,” Pablo Costa, Packaging Leader, Unilever Home Care, tells PackagingInsights.

By concentrating its products, the FMCG giant is reducing the amount of plastic packaging necessary and making transport more efficient, both of which reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. For example, Omo small and mighty 2020 has 66 percent less GHG emissions in contrast to Omo dilute 2010 per consumer use. Using PCR also facilitates the reduction of Unilever’s GHG footprint of its plastic packaging, Costa notes.

Click to EnlargeMost cleaning and laundry products available today contain chemicals made from fossil fuel feedstocks, a non-renewable source of carbon.Reading the rainbow
The “Carbon Rainbow” sets out how Unilever will be diversifying its carbon sources from plant, air, marine and waste materials. Non-renewable sources of carbon (known as black carbon) will be replaced using CO2 capture (purple carbon), plants and biological sources (green carbon), marine algae (blue carbon), and carbon recovered from waste materials (grey carbon). 

The term “Carbon Rainbow” was coined by Unilever to help articulate the different sources of carbon available; however, the sources of carbon identified are not new concepts or unique to Unilever.

“This will be underpinned by life-cycle assessments to guide the selection of the best mix of carbon sources to gradually phase out dependence on fossil fuels,” Costa adds.

Investing in a Clean Future
Notably, Unilever has set aside €1 billion (US$1,185 billion) within the Clean Future program to finance biotechnology research, low carbon chemistry, as well as CO2 and waste utilization. The investment will be used to halve the use of virgin plastic by 2025 and support the development of brand communications that make these technologies appealing to consumers. 

“This is a budget that previously would have been spent on classic, fossil-fuel based innovation programs for new formats, variants or packaging. Through the investment, our objective is to accelerate the research performed by technology partners on promising technologies and scale them to deliver diversified carbon sources to our customers across the globe,” Costa explains.

The Clean Future investment arrives in addition to Unilever’s new €1 billion “Climate and Nature fund” and is focused on creating affordable cleaning and laundry products that deliver superior cleaning results with a significantly lower environmental impact.

In other strides to mitigate environmental impact, Unilever has committed to achieving a deforestation-free supply chain by 2023. Before the end of the decade, the company envisions making its product formulations biodegradable and halving its products’ greenhouse gas impact across their lifecycle.

With the assistance of chemicals company SABIC, Unilever reintroduced its Magnum ice cream pints range in tubs and lids made with fully recyclable and recycled polypropylene plastic (rPP) in August.

By Anni Schleicher

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