In 2020, Unilever made strong commitments to the environment. Among them is carbon neutrality by 2039 throughout the value chain. To achieve this, the group has decided to work with raw material suppliers and has therefore launched Unilever Climate Promise, a support program to help other links in the chain to improve their environmental profile.
Among its 56,000 suppliers worldwide, Unilever has focused on those with the greatest environmental impact. The group has selected 300 of them and will help them to significantly reduce their carbon emissions. Among them are suppliers of ingredients or raw materials for packaging.
“Some have set ambitious targets that are in line with what science considers necessary and are well on their way to achieving them. Others have not yet started,” says Unilever. “We will introduce the program in stages, starting this year with a small, diverse group that can help shape it, before moving to a pilot involving about 40 companies in 2022. Beginning in 2023, we plan to train the 300 suppliers that contribute the most to our overall greenhouse gas footprint. When we assess the urgency of the climate challenges and the scale of our upstream value chain emissions, it becomes clear that we also need to motivate the entire commercial sector if we are to collectively achieve the 1.5°C ambition and halve emissions by 2030, so that we can meet the Paris Agreement.”
